Anahera's Angel
by sampson17
Summary: A revamp of something I started in '09. Warren Peace starts junior year wanting to just get by, but a few new friends make him consider changing his ways. Soon, what started as an average year is an international adventure of treason, secret identities, and evil geniuses.
1. Prologue

**Oh, first stories galore! I'm so excited!**

**Disclaimer- Sky High is not mine, because if it was I would be making a sequal instead of sitting around typing fan fiction.**

**Now without further adu-**

"Why is it always me?"

Warren Peace could see Will Stronghold waving at him from across the school. Hell, everyone could see Stronghold, his patriotic colour scheme stood out like a sore thumb and his hippie girlfriend was holding him up via some sort of free standing ivy.

"Warren! Over here Warren! Come on Warren, over here!" Stronghold's squeaky voice echoed across the school grounds. All of his friends joined him in calling out to the pyro, eager to have him join them on the school steps.

Sighing, Warren made his way over to the group. He just couldn't help himself, they were annoying, yippy, and cynical, but they were the closest thing he had to friends.

"Hey, it's the 'Dub-Dog!" said Zach Erlantz, his hair almost blinding in the sunlight. Warren rolled his eyes but said nothing. Zach was about a half a foot taller than him, and flame retardant, a gift he had learned of the previous year. Fighting him would be stupid. Granted, Warren was probably much stronger than him, but his minute and very protective girlfriend was a black belt.

"Hello Warren. Did you finish Medulla's homework last night?" This came from Ethan Volkan, the only person in Warren's advanced ray class. Warren gave him a nod and Ethan smiled. "Correct me if I'm wrong here, the hot dog ray is the sausage ray in Italy, right?" Another nod and Ethan turned to his notebook to record this. Out of everyone in the little posse he had recently been forced into, Warren preferred Ethan that best.

"God Warren, where were you when I was nearly failing Algebra last year?"

Magenta Portia was, on the other hand, one of the people that Warren did not get along with. Everyone had assumed that because they both dressed like My Chemical Romance groupies that they would get along. However, they didn't. Not in the slightest.

Magenta thought Warren was a prick and that his powers were over rated. Warren thought Magenta was a stuck up poseur who had problems treating anyone as a respect deserving human being. He was vegetarian, she was carnivore. He was lighters, she was cell phones. He liked quiet, she liked loud. The list of their differences reached the moon and back.

"Hush Mag, you passed that class with flying colours." Layla George smiled at Warren and Magenta as they glared at each other. Her red hair was in a high, twisty bun thing, making her look like Lucille Ball. She laughed as Magenta rolled her eyes and Warren turned away smoking. He often wondered if it hurt to be so happy all the time. Surely her mouth must get tired from the perpetual smiling?

"Come on Lay, let the kids have their fun." There was Will, trying to look mature to impress Layla. Ever since homecoming they had been dating, and Will had spent the entire time trying to prove his worthiness. He had crossed out all the hearts he had made with Gwen's name in them, replacing her name carefully with Layla's. Earning a smile from his beloved girlfriend, Will's own grin grew even larger and he put his arm around her.

This show of affection quite frankly made Warren sick. His own girlfriend, Crystal Izotz, would never put up with such foolish behavior. She went by a system that said you only got to hold her when you gave her a kiss, not just because. According to her it was more special that way, made them cherish their time together. Warren didn't quite get this, but he agreed with one of Crystal's other philosophies: Public displays of affection should be sitting next to each other, or buying each other lunch. Not lip locking in front of the student body, as Layla and Will were now doing.

And speak of the angels, Crystal appeared and plopped down next to him. "Hey there Warren!" She said, her high-pitched voice quivering with excitement. Her fingers drummed on her jean leg, the nails painted a chipped dark blue.

"What's all this excitement about?" he asked. They had been going out for almost 3 months; their anniversary had been 14 days ago. It seemed like a lifetime to Warren, a lifetime that he enjoyed living. Crystal was his best friend; she got his crazy moods and urges to kill people. She understood when he needed to be left alone and when he needed a hand to hold. Not ever a shoulder to cry on, he had cried enough in his life, but Crystal understood that as well. It was all enough to make him sick to his stomach some days, but other days it was nice to know somebody who understood him so well.

"I just found out I got a 4.0!" That was another thing Crystal was good at, school. She was intelligent enough not to get lost when Warren started speaking geek.

Sometimes her perfection made his head hurt. She was like a paid actor, the way she said what he wanted to hear, no matter what. He knew that it wasn't a healthy relationship; she was his caretaker more than anything. It just felt good to be loved by someone just because he was himself.

"So guess what?" Will was sitting on his kitchen counter, helping him eat a triple cheese pizza. His mom was not home, though that was very normal. She was often much to busy with saving the world to come home for weeks at a time.

"What?" asked Warren, preparing for some thing stupid or pointless.

"My cousin Anahera is going to be transferring into our school. She's really excited."

`"I'll bet." Said Warren absent mindedly.

"Gee, you sound excited." Will flicked part of his crust at the boy, who caught it and torched it. Smiling nervously, Will said "Why the monotone?"

"It's just, you people flock to me like I'm the Dahli Llama. What's another stalker to add to the mix?"

Will sighed, the boy he had appointed to be his best friend was lacking in some aspects, particularly those involving social behavior.

"She's different, weird." He said. "You'll like her."

"Of course I will."

**And that is the end of the prologue. I hope everybody enjoys the story to come. Also, I would like to note that this is not an Anahera/Warren flick, and that she is NOT by ANY MEANS a Mary Sue. Just so you know. Though Warren and Crystal have been going out for a short time because of reasons that we will find out later, it is set in September of Will and Co.'s sophomore year. Warren is a junior.**

**R & R everyone, comments, constructive criticism, criticism, flames, ect. You know the drill.**


	2. I Sit And Wait

**So I know what you're thinking. Wow, two chapters in two days, she must have no life! And that's about right.**

**Disclaimer- I do not own Sky High or any of its charactors. I do however own one tasty, multi coloured candy cane. Yum! Anyways, here we are with the first official chapter of Anahera's Angel.**

**I'd also like to note that from now on all chapter titles are going to be lyrics to the song "Angel" by Robbie Williams. Will this have 27 chapters? I'm not sure. But I'll try gosh darnit!**

How Warren was dragged into spending his Sunday afternoon unpacking with Will's relatives was rather a mystery to him. Will had invited him over to hang out, but then casually asked if Warren would like to go for a ride and meet his 'soon to be friend' Anahera. He had agreed, not thinking anything of it.

So, he got into the car and rode to the Stronghold's, which was nothing short of an adventure with Will behind the wheel. He was a bit old for his grade, and the first person to get a license, though he barely passed. Every red light was a jerking stop, every turn sent Warren either flying into the window or much closer to Will than he had ever hoped to be. They had eventually made it to their destination in one piece, though Warren was rather peeved at Will and continued glaring at him as they walked up the sidewalk to the front door of the home.

Anahera Stronghold was clearly related to Will. Her hair was dirty blonde and straight, hanging down from a New York Yankees hat. The suitcase she was carrying had a faded American flag sewn on to the front. She also had his small build and dark brown eyes. She wore a long sleeve blue shirt with the Crunch logo on it. It was frayed slightly at the cuffs but clean, unlike her stained and ripped blue jeans. Compared to her large father she was relatively short, though seemed just as strong as Will.

"Nice to meet you, Warren." She had said in her scratchy voice. Though according to Will she was barely fourteen, she sounded much like an elderly smoker. Her father did as well, and Warren saw the nicotine gum pack in his back pocket. He was very tall and looked to be quite strong. He was Will's father's junior by several years, he nearly flunked out of Sky High and spent years as a Nirvana roadie. Now he was working as the head of the high school's music department.

Anahera's mother was out of the picture. Will had warned him not to bring her up, that the subject was sore with Mr. Stronghold and only upset his daughter. Warren had seen a photo of her at her wedding; she didn't look like the type of person who would have a family in the first place. She had waist length platinum hair, unnaturally tan skin, and lots of heavy make up, even on her wedding day. Unlike the blushing brides he saw in movies and television, she didn't glow or smile. Instead she smirked and posed in a suggestive manor, hanging off a grinning Stewart Stronghold.

"So Will," Stewart began after chatting with Warren about his school activities. "You better rive your friend home. You've got some work to do here."

"Unpacking?" Will had asked with a grimace and Stewart had nodded. "But why do I have to help, can't you get Mom or Dad to do it?"

It sometimes amazed Warren that Layla could hang out with Will all day and not strangle him. The boy clearly had a case of only child syndrome. Stewart laughed though, and reached out to ruffle Will's hair, shaking his head no. Will's expression changed into a bashful 'I-guess-have-to' kind of grin and he sighed.

"Hey Warren," he said "You want to help?"

Warren frowned inwardly, damn that Will. He had just given away his Sunday afternoon to helping unpack boxes for strangers. Of course, saying any of this allowed would have made him sound rather rude, so he had no choice but to accept the other and smile. This had most likely been Will's plan all along. He would not want to work without a friend to keep him busy. Warren had to hand it to him, he was not always the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but he was crafty when he needed to be.

So with a smile from Anahera he was whisked away to the large U-Haul van that sat in front of their house. With a single hand she opened the door and then jumped inside. They lived on the outskirts of town, no need to worry about nosey neighbors noticing a teenage girl carrying a coffee table and couch all alone.

Stewart smiled as he unloaded two beds and sets of mattresses, whistling the entire time. He tossed will boxes of cutlery and plates, it was amazing to Warren that only one container was dropped, and the forks inside were unharmed.

Then he began helping carry up Anahera's clothes. He room was in the small attic, it was dusty but well lit by a large window overlooking the forest filled backyard. She only had a few boxes, she told me she donated most of her things to a shelter back home and planned on buying new clothes when she got to visit the Maxville Shopping Center to 'get a feel for the local designers.' Warren raised his eyebrows and informed the girl that most of the local designers were talent less, and that she was better off wearing the small number of clothes she had than wasting her money.

Warren soon learned that Stewart and Anahera Stronghold were quite possibly the world's biggest pack rats. When confronted about this, Anahera smiled and Stewart laughed, telling him that this was a mere piece of the possessions that they had had before. Will nodded, saying that at their previous house they had had entire rooms filled to the brims with pointless knick-knacks, books, pieces of art, games, and completely useless bits of rubbish. Still, cartons and crate and an infinite amount of chests were filled with what Warren saw as unimportant junk, though Anahera and Stewart disagreed.

He helped the two with their boxes, placing them all into a nice suburban house. It was a small colonial, with a quaint old-fashioned kitchen and only two bathrooms. The ceiling paint was peeling, but other than that the house was in nice shape, albeit a tad cramped. Will and Anahera put the furniture into place and he was selected to dust off all the china that was to go on in some relic old cabinet. Surprisingly people with super strength were no good with delicate things, Will had already crushed three lamps and Anahera had demolished a small umbrella stand. Each time they did this Stewart laughed and told a story about when he was first growing into his powers. The three would then chuckle amongst themselves and Warren would give a half hearted grin, though he didn't get the humor as much.

Their work was quick and Warren and Will elft a few hours later, this time Warren drove. The road seemed to stretch out as they drove east back to Will's subdivision. It was quiet, a peaceful silence that magnified the sounds of birds chirping and children playing, the noises that echoed against the pavement from the neighborhood they went through on their way back.

"God, where's a sunset when we need one? If only we had been driving a few hours later." Will said, hand drumming on the dashboard to a popular song. Warren had to laugh; his friend had probably seen too many movies in his time.

"Will, we're driving east." He said, pointing to the compass the was in a corner of the overhanging mirror. "We'd have to be driving in the early morning to be going into a sun_rise_ if anything."

"Well." Will said in a falsely uptight voice. He folded his hands on his laps and pierced his lips, doing a perfect impression of an upset Principal Powers. "That," he said, imitating her voice with surprising accuracy, "Is simply unacceptable Mr. Peace." Will glared at Warren sternly, and pouted his bottom lip whilst furrowing his brow. Warren was laughing so hard that he was almost crying. It was a stupid impression, but for some reason he found it to be extraordinarily hilarious.

Warren smiled at Will; he was unexpected in his visions. He had always a vision of what perfection was, and Will had never really been included. A best friend, that was part of the plan, but not one like Will. Will got in fights with Warren daily; he disagreed with him all the time, he was one of the first people to point out when Warren had made any sort of error. He was not a normal best friend at all. Yet one day when he had sat down and tried to figure out why he wasted his time with such a pest, and, on paper, he couldn't really come up with anything. Did the laughs out number the cuss words dropped at each other, or the punches thrown? Did the fact that he was the Commander's son add a rebellious aspect? Was it because he was the only one who would take him? He doubted all of these theories, except for maybe the last one. But even with that, he had been a loner before, why did he need Will now?

He decided that it was because Will was, simply put, permanent and real. While most people tried to spend as little time in Warren's presence as possible, Will stuck to Warren like glue, constantly hounding him to do his homework, brush his hair, be more sociable. It was as though Will had made it his life's goal to piss Warren off into becoming a gentleman. And piss Warren off he did. His mother, teachers, even Crystal usually told Warren what they knew he wanted to hear. And sometimes he just got sick of swallowing their lies. They were afraid of him and he knew it. They thought that he was just like his father, reckless and conscienceless. Will was one of the first people to stand up to Warren, to give him the cold, hard truth. Warren admired his honesty, but that didn't stop him from beating the crap out of him, or at least attempting to, whenever he was on the receiving end of what Layla had deemed Will's own brand of 'Tough Love.' But that was another positive thing about Will, he wasn't breakable.

Warren was just sitting there, in his own little world with Will and Will's car and their own little non-existent sunset. He was just sitting there, waiting for the rest of the world to join them.

Warren walked home after leaving Will's. He didn't have to work tonight, Mrs. Ling, the owner of The Paper Lantern, was off at her niece's wedding. She would return the following morning, but until then Warren was free to relax. As he opened the door to his small condominium, he was surprised to see his mother smiling in the doorway.

Mira "Paz" Peace had been gorgeous when she and Baron Battle had been attending high school, and her age had only made her beauty seem more mature. She was elegant and soft-spoken, her accent was heavily Tex-Mex, and her thin lips were almost always turned up into a smile. However, looking closely you could see she was slowly deteriorating. Her aging was in leaps and jerks, caused by stress. Her dark hair was streaked with gray, her tan face was covered in worry lines, and her eyes bore a sad look that no amount of cheerful grinning could take away.

"Ma!" Warren said, surprised. She was not expected to be home until many days later, her arrival was a bit of a shock, though very welcome. He knew many boys his age who hated or were annoyed by their mothers, but not him. Warren realized this was most likely because he didn't spend enough time to hate her, but didn't think it was possible to. She smiled at him in a way that the sadness in her eyes just about disappeared. Ever since he had noticed it there as a little boy, Warren had made it his goal to stop his mother's eyes from being sad. All the jokes he made for her, silly songs he sang for her, and poems telling her how much le loved her had all been to achieve this goal. It had taken him 16 years to get as far as he was, and that was still not very far. He did not mind though, it was the kind of project he could waste a lifetime on.

"Buenos tardes! Eres apenas a tiempo para la cena." The smell of the aforementioned meal wafted through the house. They were having beans, rice, and pinwheels. Warren kissed his mother on the cheek and made his way up the stairs to wash up.

It was funny how perfect they were. It was an odd occurrence for his mother to be home and cooking him dinner, so whenever such a thing happened he did his best to be an excellent son, and pretend like they were a normal family. Part of him imagined he was Beaver Cleaver, and that after dinner that would listen to some dead guy talk about some dead president on the radio. He knew that was probably not the case though. Even if zombies invaded and started launching into monologues about politics, Mira had a slight inability to make it through dinner without getting called to duty.

Looking in the mirror Warren had a sudden thought that he often got when Mira came to town. Was he just imagining his mother? Or was he finally going crazy after being left alone so long? Perhaps he had fallen asleep in Will's car and it was all a dream.

"Hijo, venido aqui." Mira's voice called through down the hall, shattering what would have otherwise been a quiet, lonely night. Warren smiled and splashed himself with water. He really did need a hair cut, and to change out of his now dusty (Thanks to Anahera's bedroom) clothing.

"Una momento!" He hollered, then rushed to his room. He spied the outfit he had reserved for when Mira was home. It was black jeans and a red button down shirt, not something he would usually wear even if he was being threatened at gun point. His Grandma Sofia had gotten him the outfit a few Christmases ago, and he had only kept it around for nights like these. Quickly glancing around his room for a rubber band, he smoothed his hair out and pulled it back into the ponytail he usually wore at The Paper Lantern. Buttoning the last of the buttons, he stepped out of his room.

The scent of rice and beans made him smile, the house always smelled good for a couple days after Mira came home. He walked into the kitchen to see his mother fretting over a jar of fortune cookies Madame Ling had gotten him for his 16th birthday a couple months ago. They were in airtight packaging, but still a tad harder than usual.

"Warren, Warren, Warren," his mother said, rubbing her eyes. "I cannot understand why any self-respecting Spanish boy would bring this into their home." Her accent was stronger than ever, he had always been paranoid that she would come back without it. Her mispronounced alphabet was one of the things that made her unique.

"Mama," He began. Her eyes said she was teasing him, and he was teasing right back. "If you wanted me to be a good self-respecting Spanish boy, why would you name me Warren?"

She sighed, they had both heard this story a million times, but the more she talked, the more he remembered her voice when she went away. "When I was a girl in Mexico, just a bit younger than you, I could do things nobody else could." She sat down at the set table and Warren joined her, his eyes never leaving hers, noting the traces of sadness that remained. "I could make ice cubes, make the wind chilly. I once got so mad that it hailed! Could you imagine, hail in Chiapas?" Warren knew this story by heart, knew that this was the part where he gave her a look of disbelief and raised one eyebrow. "Well, neither could my parents. So they write to President Madrid and tell him of all my wonderful powers. He writes back and tells them that the place to take me is America. Well, we are poor and have no money, so we can do nothing. Until one day an old man saw me practicing my powers and he asks me why I do not go to America. I tell him my family is poor and we have no money to send me to America. He says that he is like me, that he is a, a hydrokinetic, is what he calls it. He says it would be a shame to waste such talent as I have. So he gives my parents enough money to send me to America, and I go off and become a hero, all thanks to that man. And you know what his name was?"

"Patrick Warren." They said in unison. Mira smiled and patted her son on the shoulder. "Now, enough talking and more eating!"

The meal was delicious, as his mother's meals always were. By the end of it Warren was stuffed, but then Mira reached into the freezer and produced some store bought fried ice cream. It was their little joke, and though it was stupid, Warren laughed and smiled.

With Mira he was a kid again, making up for time they lost together when he _was_ a child. They had silly riddles and rituals and games, and they were happy that way, ignoring the past and ignoring the wrong.

Until Mira's phone went off. Her voice grew serious several times as she answered it, and her brow furrowed eight times. Warren was counting. She hung it up after a minute and frowned. "I'm sorry bebé, Ti amo."

"I love you too, Ma," he said. He knew that the entire evening was simply a buildup to saying goodbye, but it hit him hard every time. He hugged Mira and buried his head in her hair. It smelled a bit like smoke and the cheap flowery shampoo that she used when she was traveling. It smelled a lot like home.

And so she left and he cleaned off the dinner table and did the dishes alone. He turned on the radio, but no zombies were broadcasting. Eventually he turned off the lights and crawled into bed. Tomorrow was Monday, which made him feel even lower, if that was even possible. Finally, after tossing and turning he managed to curl up and fall into a deep, deep sleep.

His dreams made no sense at all. One moment Crystal was about to kiss him and the next she turned into a giant wac Barbie doll. He threw her to the side, scared and disgusted with what she had become. The Mira appeared and started yelling at him. He begged her to stop and she started crying. Because of him. He tried to reach out to her, but suddenly he was falling, right into Anahera's open mouth.

He awoke with a start and glanced at his clock. It was 6:15, he might as well get up. Tip toeing down the hall to the bathroom he stopped and wondered why he was tiptoeing. It wasn't like he was going to wake anybody. On the way back he stomped as loud as he could, but that seemed pointless too. The quiet around him seemed peaceful, and he of all people wasn't someone to destroy peace.

Getting dressed was more like picking things off of his closet floor that didn't smell. After shaving and combing his hair, he went downstairs to eat breakfast. The dishes from last night, his mother's fine china, were resting on the dish rack, making last night painfully real. He was a sissy, missing his mother. He should have been conditioned to it by now, yet he still let it cut him up inside.

Turning on the television he saw a cheery weatherman predicting nice weather, but a cool autumn chill coming in next week. It was about time, September was almost over.

"And that's our 7:10 traffic forecast." Another news reporter, this time a woman said. At first Warren merely blinked. 7:10? It had not taken him almost an hour to finish one bowl of Cheerios. He looked over at the clock on the stove. 7:11 was displayed in blue digits. Warren felt his stomach sink. He raced into it's bedroom, where the clock blinked 6:32. Then he realized that during the night it must have reset. He hit himself as he realized that when he was throwing things around looking for a hair tie, something heavy had probably been tossed its way, and landed on the clock's reset button.

"Damn it," He said, racing to grab his school bag. After that he looked his front door then sprinted out, just in time to see the bus turn the corner. Warren had many talents, but thanks to years of cutting gym class he was not a very gifted runner. He knew he would die trying to catch up to the bus. Instead, he kicked his backpack and started swearing. He was screwed, and couldn't do anything about it. It's not like he could ask a neighbor to borrow their car.

"Hey, Peace, you need a ride?"

Will was right; he was going to like Anahera.

**And that's the end of the first chapter; I hope it's liked. Also, apologies for some of the Spanish grammatical errors, I can't figure out how to get accent marks and correct punctuation on my laptop. If you see any mistakes in the Spanish feel free to drop me a line, it's a second language.**

**R & R everyone!**


	3. Does an Angel Contemplate my Fate?

**Well, here's another chapter, hope everyone enjoys.**

**Disclaimer- I did own Sky High once, but I lost rights in a game of poker. Curse that James Bond.**

Stewart Stronghold's car did not look like it belonged to a super hero. It was old with chipped canary yellow pant. The truck had been in an accident, its front light was smashed in and the bulb was cracked. To Warren it was the most perfect thing he had ever seen.

Anahera jumped out and ushered him in, herself climbing into the seat next to him. She was so young, she probably didn't see anything wrong with two friends sharing a seat, but Warren could just picture the look on Crystal's face. He kept his mouth shut, but his head down.

"Well, let's get going." Stewart motioned for Anahera to close the door and he started off down the road. They drove in silence for about thirty seconds before Stewart turned on the radio. He was obviously was not comfortable with the silence. Anahera raised her eyebrows at her father; the station was some sort of Polish radio. A cheery polka blared, and Warren asked if maybe they could change it. Anahera fiddled with the knob until it switched to a smooth jazz station, then a modern rock one. When that went to commercial she turned down the volume, glanced up at Warren and said "So,"

"Yeah," he said, they were quite the pair of conversationalists. Clearing his throat, he attempted once again to make small talk.

"Are you excited for your first day?" he asked. That was a normal question. Right? Layla, his mother, Will, they were all right. He did have terrible people skills.

"Yeah, hopefully I'll meet some cool people and won't get a lot of grief for being the other Stronghold, not that I am one for taking grief." She laughed and smiled at her own joke. It was odd; she was at a somewhat nervous ease.

"Do you know what class you are going to be in, or have you not done power placement yet?" Coach Boomer would get a kick out of another super strong kid, he probably figured that she'd love his class and help him bully the hero support.

"Well, I sent in my information before, which had my power on it. They called me and told me I was going to be in hero class. It's kind of a stupid way to do things, splitting up people into uneven classes. I bet the cliques are totally terrible. It's, like, bogus. If high school is going to be modeled after any failed government, it should be communist."

`Stewart sighed; he had more than likely heard this before. Warren found it humorous, the school needed a political nutcase and Anahera would make a great one. However, he could guess that if he mentioned this she would attack him for labeling. "Has Will introduced you to Layla yet?" He asked. Those two would get along well.

"No, I was supposed to, but apparently she spent this weekend skiing with her father. Lucky, I wish I could go hang out up north. It's too hot in Maxville."

Warren grinned. "Don't talk about to hot when you're sitting next to me."

Anahera laughed along with him. She was wearing clean jeans today, but they still had small holes in the knee and almost completely fringed off cuffs. Her top was a green button down, and on her head was a brown tweed pageboy. She looked nice enough; she would not have trouble making friends. Add in her natural Stronghold charm and she was sure to be popular.

"Okay now, buckle up. Warren, don't freak out or anything, but we might soon be experiencing some mild turbulence." Stewart was shouting over the now roaring engine. Then he floored it, Warren saw the speedometer go up to 88. Smiling as he sped down the street, Stewart gestured to a large blue button on the dash. Warren watched him press it, but it was a few seconds before his stomach was jerked forward. They were going a lot faster, and he heard something that sounded like a plane engine.

Suddenly they were airborne, the town of Maxville stretched out beneath them like a picture in a geography book. Warren repressed the urge to scream out that he was on top of the world, though it felt like it. Being in the car was different then the bus, a lot different. Anahera was there, pointing out bagel shops and subdivisions. They drove over The Paper Lantern and he gave a little salute to Madame Ling, on the ground far below.

It was the closest he'd ever been to flying and he was disappointed when Mr. Stronghold parked the car on Sky High's solid ground. They were early; he didn't have to worry about Crystal seeing Anahera. He wasn't sure why it bothered him so, but he didn't dwell on it. Instead he remarked on how amazing the flight up had been and thanked Anahera and Stewart profusely for driving him. He then gathered up his things and went to his locker, before quickly remembering to take his Tegretol, for some reason, his doctor got mad when he was rushed to the hospital.

After swallowing the pill dry he went to his locker. The inside was as it had always been, written on by the school's past "bad boys." Apparently in some great plan the school board had decided to give all the potential troublemakers the same locker. It was stupid that he had been picked; looking back he was sure that the board would have felt the same way. Lash or Speed would have made better candidates, even Zack for the amount of time he spent in detention for forgetting his homework or being late to class.

But no, the locker of doom belonged to him. There were various names, dates, and even phone numbers scratched into its once shiny metal service. The various drawings of human anatomy had been removed, Warren was thankful for that, but the curse words, pot induced sketches, and smell of bad beer remained.

Never the less, it was his locker and he tried hard to keep it clean. It was foolish to think that maybe if he kept a clean locker he would be seen as a better person, but he tried as hard as could, and often got nice and encouraging notes from the custodial staff. There was one in there this morning, with a muffin from the cafeteria as well.

"Enjoy." He read aloud. The handwriting was lacy and unfamiliar, probably from the new janitor, Miss Sharon. It smelled odd, like a mix of fruit and dark chocolate. It looked good, and his stomach rumbled reminding him that one small bowl of Cheerios was a far cry from his usual three pots of oatmeal. He bit eagerly into the muffin, and then realized something was not right.

His whole body seized up and he dropped the pastry. He fell, rigid, to the ground. It felt as if his heart was no long beating, and he couldn't breath. The sound of blood rushing in his ears was all he could think about, death didn't cross his mind until his vision blurred.

And then, there was an angel. He could see her, her long hair and her voice calling his name. But she was crying, she was sad. Warren wanted to reach out and comfort her, but he couldn't move his arm. It felt hopeless, the angel left and Warren closed his eyes, awaiting the darkness.

Nurse Spex was a curious woman. She had been working at the school for a long time, and was always amazed by the medical conditions super heroes could get. It made them seem just as weak as everybody else. Warren didn't feel particularly weak, he felt tired and angry. He took medicine to avoid having seizures, and almost right after the medicine he'd been on the floor, every muscle in his body clenching together. However, Nurse Spex didn't see this in quite the same way. She'd called it a "learning experience" and wanted to educate everybody on the staff in ways to properly deal with people who had dangerous illnesses as he did. That's what she'd called it. A dangerous illness. Like he was suddenly going to drop dead, as if he had polio and might need wheelchair assistance. It made him feel like an outsider, some poor sick little boy. In reality he was just an unlucky guy with the grounds to sue a major medicine company.

"So, you've had epilepsy for how many years?"

"12." Her office made him queasy, it was bright and cold.

"Hmm, interesting. And what are you taking dear?"

"God, for the last time, I am not on drugs! Why does this school assume that because I'm a little messed up it automatically makes me a crack dealer?"

"Warren, I was asking what you were taking to control your seizures."

"Oh." He said, turning bright red. He was angry already; he knew he probably would snap at many more people throughout his morning, but he felt bad for taking it on this nurse who was trying to help him. "Um, something that starts with a 'T', I can't really remember it right now…" Oh God, he was blushing.

"Tegretol?" Nurse Spex looked at him with interests. He assumed she thought he was on drugs? That would be one to talk about in the teacher's lounge.

"Uh, yeah." Warren nodded quickly, and the conversation was over. "So, why am I alive?" he asked casually.

"Well, Miss Stronghold came and told me you, I believe her exact words were, freaking out in the hallway." Nurse Spex chuckled.

"I guess that's who I saw standing over me. I thought she was an angel and that I was dead. I guess I was only half right." Warren laughed.

Nurse Spex turned around, her eyes shinning. "Why, that was very sweet Mr. Peace. Almost poetic."

"Um, thanks?" He hadn't meant to be so dramatic, but he was very thankful to Anahera. Without her he probably would have done some serious damage. Then, he remembered a question he been meaning to ask.

"So why did I have a seizure? I had just taken my medicine, like, a minute before." This had been puzzling Warren, his medication had worked well almost all his life, why did it pick that morning to malfunction.

"What had you been doing before? Not drugs apparently." Nurse Spex smiled at her own little joke, chuckling inwardly while Warren rolled his eyes, not bothering to be discrete.

"Well, I got to school, took my pill," God he hated saying that, it made him feel like he was mentally unstable or had some sort of life threatening handicap. "I didn't use any water though." He added,

"Interesting, continue." Nurse Spex was writing down all that he said. Warren had the sudden urge to stretch out on a chaise lounge; she would make an excellent psychiatrist.

"Then, I ate a muffin one of the custodians gave me. The new custodian, Miss Sharon." Was Miss Sharon trying to kill him? What had he ever done to her? Maybe this was a Baron issue; maybe she was killing him as he had killed off one of her family members. Warren was a tad offended by this, but he could see the reasoning. Then he remembered that he didn't actually know if the janitor had planted the muffin. Nurse Spex certainly had not jumped out of her seat to summon the police, so he assumed that the janitor was probably not been behind his sudden upset.

"What flavour was the muffin?"

That was an odd question.

"Um, I dunno, muffin flavoured?

"Anahera dear, could you being in the muffin?"

Anahera appeared into the office carrying the muffin he had been eating in a plastic bag. Nurse Spex took the muffin and started examining it with the utmost care.

Anahera looked at him with her eyebrows raised. At first it didn't look like she knew what to do or say, but then she smiled at Warren. "Good to know you're not dead." Her voice was cheery, but he could tell she had been worried. It made him feel good to know that he had people to leave behind when he died. Then he realized that this was a bit of a morbid way of seeing the world.

"Yeah, it just didn't fit into my schedule today." He was joking, but his eyes said he was sorry for making her so stressed out, that he was sorry she was worried, even if it made him happy to know she was.

"That was weird, I really should be dead. Thanks for, you know, saving me."

"I didn't save you, Spex did. And come on, that's a little dramatic. You weren't going to die."

"The school is just about empty, who would have been there to find me? Nobody, until after it was way to late."

"Somebody would have…" And that's when Anahera seemed to start appreciating the situation she had stopped. "Well, I guess you're just lucky."

"Maybe. Why were you even down that hall? Freshmen classes and lockers are on the other side of the school, aren't they?" She bit her lip, and Warren raised an eyebrow.

"Actually, I don't really know. I was just chilling out at my locker, and I had the sudden urge to go exploring. Obviously you have somebody looking out for you, somewhere up there."

"I have you."

"Ahem." Nurse Spex had finished analyzing the muffin, and had apparently come to the conclusion that it was not a ticking time bomb. She actually seemed to have eaten some of it. "This is a grape fruit muffin."

There was silence from both Anahera; she sat there with an expression that was partially surprised, partially amused, and partially puzzled.

"And?" asked Warren. He didn't think he was allergic to grape fruit, he was pretty sure he'd had it on a vacation to Florida when he was younger.

"Grapefruit is known to have a negative reaction on patients who swallow it while or shortly before or after they take medicines such as yours."

"Well that's the stupidest thing I have ever heard." Anahera shrieked.

She was just a kid, and kids said the darnedest things.

After Nurse Spex made sure he wasn't going to have another seizure or eat any more grapefruit, he was cleared and free to go. As he reached his locked to prepare for first period, Miss Sharon came running up to him.

"I am so sorry, Sugar!"

She was a tall lady and spoke with a Southern American accent. He was shoved into a hug, his face being squeezed into her rather large bosom. She cried and apologized, and made quite a scene.

"It's okay!" He had said when he was finally released. She cried some more and told him about how the other ladies had told her his story, how he 'Had overcome such a troubled background and now did your best to respect school property and be nice.' This annoyed Warren slightly, for her didn't think his background was too troubled.

Eventually she moved on, wiping her eyes and still apologizing profusely. He swore under his breath, the lady meant well but he didn't want to be put under the spotlight, especially after the morning he'd had.

Didn't it figure that Anahera would be talking to the school's worst influence by lunch? Stupid, naïve little kid. He looked around; nobody from his group had arrived at the lunch table. Was he now expected to rescue her from evil's clutches?

Apparently so.

"Excuse me, Lash, you wouldn't happen to be hassling this lovely young lady, would you?" God, he sounded lame, like he was her father or older brother. Inwardly he groaned.

Lash apparently felt as he did, because a smirk appeared on his face almost instantly. "Gee Pops, would I ever hassle anyone?"

Pops. That douche bag was going to die.

"Where's Speed, out doing some?"

This got a glare, but he needed a stronger reaction. He need the inevitable fight to be Lash's fault, not his.

"Actually, I assume he's helping out his pregnant girlfriend, Royal Pain."

And at this Anahera started laughing harder than Warren would have thought possible. She was gasping for air within seconds, almost doubled over, holding her hand to her navel.

"What is so funny, freshmen?" Lash obviously felt protective of his best friend and his baby mama.

"Well, I've seen pictures of this Speed guy, and of this Gwen Grayson or Royal Pain or whatever you want to call the chick. And, well, I didn't think they would get together…"

"She hypnotized him to get what she wanted, and I guess she just got lonely. She hypnotized all of us. Except Penny. But Penny was evil long before anyone of us."

Hypnotization was the official story, though Lash was the only one who was actually hypnotized. Speed had developed a crush on Gwen, and she had used her womanly charms to get him to do her dirty work. That had ended well.

"Well, I'd love to stay and chat about you being possessed by a girl. But I am going to escort young Anahera here to a table full of better potential friends. Ones that don't let themselves get hypnotized by evil school girls."

Lash through the first punch.

And suddenly Warren knew that God had put Stretch-Boy on the earth to give him an outlet for his anger.

He wasn't going to be angry for a long time after this.

**There you have it, the third installment of Anahera's Angel. I know that it is shorter than the last one, but I have homework and am studying for a test at the moment, so I made this as quickly as possible. There is a big blizzard blowing in tonight. My mom says we will get a LOT of snow. Yay for winter! Hopefully tomorrow there will be a snow day; if so I promise I will write up 2 more chapter to all you faithful readers! Okay, maybe the term faithful readers is a bit strong, but hey, I'm feeling rather poetic today.**

**Anyways, long story short, Read and Review. Thank you for the two people who have already done so, you don't know yet (Until now!) it but I have bought you both brand new cars, after mail-in rebate of course.**


	4. Do They Even Know

**Here's the fourth chapter, I am quite proud of it really. Once again thanks to everyone (AKA all two of you) that have reviewed. Reviews make my heart sing!**

**Disclaimer- Rats probably have more ownership over Sky High than I do. Okay, maybe not rats, but definitely mice.**

Warren really was good about not getting detention, but today had just been too much. The stress of his seizure, Lash, and being publicly embarrassed by custodial workers had built up on him. The fight was Lash's fault, but he'd fought back. He had fought back.

The reason he felt bad about being in detention was not because he regretted fighting Lash. He was feeling bad that Anahera had gotten mixed up in it. She had first tried to stop Warren by jumping on him, but then when Lash had started to attack him, she had gone ballistic. Then Will had gotten in the fight too. He felt bad that his friends were in trouble because of him, he regretted that. But seeing Lash nursing the wounds given to him by a fourteen-year-old girl were very rewarding.

"Peace, you just had to get into a fight? I am perfectly fine handling myself thank you very much." Anahera was enraged, making Warren glad that they were in the power-neutralizing detention cell. "Despite what you may believe, I am not a little pansy. Lash wasn't a problem until you stepped in."

Will gave her a disapproving look. For once he was on Warren's side. He had eagerly joined in the fight after Lash supposedly kicked Anahera. Anahera herself saw this as preposterous, and believe that Will had done it simply to annoy Lash.

"He's just not a good sort of guy. You should not be nagging out with that type of person." Will had said this many times, and Warren agreed.

Anahera however, did not. "I'll be the judge of that. He really didn't seem like such a bad guy. And you know the medical reports said he was being hypnotized. He says that he would never do such a thing out of his own free will, and I believe him!"

"Regardless of that, he is still a very bad dude," said Warren, trying to remain calm. "He bullies people. Ask Zack or Ethan. Do you want to be around that type of negative karma?" This had at least gotten Anahera to laugh, though she promptly disagreed with everything Warren had said. She rambled on about how Lash was obviously a new man, and how he seemed to be a perfect gentleman.

"I get it," Will mused. "You like him!"

And that was when Anahera attacked him.

"I DO NOT LIKE HIM YOU LIAR!" Despite saying this, she began blushing. Even as she shoved her older cousin into a wall, she was turning a brilliant shade of red. Finally Warren pulled her off of Will, and sat her down at a desk.

"That," he said, "is not a good way to deal with your emotions."

This flared Anahera up even more. "I do not have emotions! We were just talking and all of a sudden I'm head over heels in love? I don't think so."

Warren sighed heavily. He was thankful he didn't have any sisters, especially if all girls attacked like Anahera. "They always go for the bad boys."

"Um, guys? I'm right here?" Came Lash's muffled comment. The ice pack at his jaw seemed to be making it rather difficult for him to talk, and he said each syllable slowly, as though it took him great effort.

"Shut up, Lash" Anahera, Warren, and Will said in unison. He shrugged and turned to look Anahera in the eyes.

"So freshmen, you have the hots for me." It was more like a statement, not a question. Anahera glared at both her cousin and Lash. Then, she sighed.

"Sorry." She said this before hanging her head in shame. Warren instantly felt enormous sympathy for the girl. He was mad at himself for teasing her about boys. Briefly, he wondered if all girls were so sensitive, before realizing that would not be a good question to ask.

"It is okay. I am damn irresistible." And with that Lash launched into a series of modeling poses, each more comical than the last. This slowly got Anahera to giggle, and look up.

Warren looked at her. She was gazing at Lash with such… admiration. It was almost adorable, and had he not been Warren Peace he would have 'Ah-ed' and dabbed his eyes.

Will however, could obviously not see the beauty of the moment. He glared at Lash with a hatred so strong Warren was surprised there wasn't a hole burned into the stretchy boy's forehead.

"So, you want to go to homecoming with me?"

This was what set Will over the edge. He lunged at Lash, grabbing onto his arm and biting down on it. This caused both Lash and Anahera to scream. Unfortunately, Anahera was the more violent of the two, and for the second time proceeded to launch herself onto Will. She dug her heels into him, which caused the boy to remove his jaw from Lash and fall down screaming 'Uncle!'

A few seconds after this event was over, Principal Powers walked in. All four of the students tried to act natural, though a keen observer would have noticed Anahera's tousled hair, or Lash's wet sleeve. The most obvious sign was Will's face; it was obvious that he was in pain. However, Principal Powers was somewhat oblivious, and let them go without noticing any of the outcomes of the incident.

"So," said Lash when they were out of the detention room. "Will you go with me?"

Anahera blushed, but spoke steadily, "Um, okay. Yeah, that would be really cool."

"Excellent. I'll pick you up around… well, you know what? Let's plan this as the day gets closer, all right?"

She had nodded and smiled a big smile. Will had glared. "I hope you know that I will be telling Stewart all about the boy you have chosen to attend prom with."

Warren felt that was a rather low blow, but didn't say anything. Lash however, felt it was a prime opportunity to impress Anahera. "Well Stronghold, in such a situation like this, I'd usually say bight me. However, because you have already helped yourself to the gourmet cuisine that is Lash, I have a question for you. How'd I taste?"

And with that, Will had flicked him off and left.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful for Warren. During Advanced Rays Mr. Medulla had a meeting, so he and Ethan were able to have conversation the entire hour. They talked about the fight at lunch and Anahera and Lash going to Homecoming together. Ethan thought that it was wise to stay out of it, but admitted he was worried. He felt that perhaps Lash was using Anahera to get back at Will for the previous year. Warren agreed, but they both knew that Anahera could definitely handle herself.

"I mean, it's not like she doesn't know how to treat a guy when he does something she doesn't like." Laughed Ethan. He had seen the blue and purple bruises on Will's sides left by the girl, and Lash was telling people that the fact that Anahera had almost broken his nose was a big turn on for him.

"Yeah. If Lash is just messing with her, he will certainly have hell to pay, and he knows it." Warren had made a mental note to stay on Anahera's good side.

"True. Hey, by the way, did you happen to talk to Crystal today?"

Truthfully, Warren had not thought about his girlfriend at all that day. He knew that it showed on his face, and hide it as he may Ethan saw. Curse that boy, he was too damn perceptive some days. Warren sighed and shook his head.

"Are you guys, you know, 'drifting apart'? I mean, you two were friends for a long time, I was amazed when you finally got the nerve to ask her out."

"Yeah, I was so afraid that it would make things different between us. I mean, when I met her at homecoming, it was like I had finally found somebody who didn't criticize me for everything. It was like, with her I could just be me."

"And did things get different between you?"

"No. And that's the problem. We're still just friends, we're just using a different label. It's like she's not even in to me, just into taming the school's insane bad boy."

"A, maybe she's just afraid or something. Maybe she's just taking it slow. B, since when was you two going out just another way to label you? And C, you're not insane. Maybe a bit of a bad boy at times, but you are as sane as I am."

"Gee, that's reassuring." Ethan punched Warren on the shoulder. He was the only person with that kind of nerve. They had been friends when they were younger, much younger. When Warren's dad was arrested and he went through his loner phase they stopped talking, but then they'd made friends in high school and life had returned to normal between the two of them.

"So, are you going to brake up with her?"

"Yeah, but I don't really know why. I mean, what am I supposed to say 'I feel like we are weird. Let's not go out anymore.' That would be kind of douche bag-y."

"Well, do you love her?"

"Of course not!" Warren had not truly loved her for a long time. It was sad to think that he kept thinking they were going to get better when they clearly were just getting worse. Optimism was his curse these days.

"Well, tell her that you just aren't in love with her."

"I can do that."

"Yes Warren, you can do that. You can set your fore arms on fire, you're almost invicible, you put up with Will wonderfully. You can break it off with a girl. I know you can. Besides, I'm sure that if Crystal is really your friend she will want what's best for you. Also, think about it. She probably can sense the weirdness between y'all too."

"Ethan, how'd _you_ get to be so wise in the ways of women?"

"Just because I am smart doesn't mean I am a dork when it comes to the ladies." After saying this Ethan did a suggestive eyebrow waggle that made Warren laugh so hard he almost fell out of his chair. He could see that Ethan wasn't a little kid any more. When they were young Warren was able to push him around, though not that he ever really did. He actually remembered the one time they had gotten into a fight, when Ethan had sat on the model airplane he had painstakingly crafted the pervious day.

He had demolished it and the two boys, who were then six and seven, had gotten into a full out fistfight. Ethan had gone home crying and Warren had never felt so bad in his life.

Ethan had grown a lot sense then. He was larger now; he had shot up and was about as tall as Warren. His melting talents had morphed into also being able to melt over things. Hero and sidekick classes were still around, but he had been transferred along with the rest of the gang after homecoming. Boomer had grumbled, but when Ethan had melted his clipboard, he had earned approval from all of the other teachers.

"So," Ethan said.

"Yeah." Warren was all talked out and the period was almost over.

"You're dumping, Anahera's going to the prom, and I still can't get a girl. High school eh? The days of our lives."

Warren could not help him self, he had to laugh. "Whoever said that didn't know anything."

"Well, maybe they just didn't know us."

The bell sounded and the two left, walking out into the autumn sunshine.

"So, you're going to homecoming with Lash."

They were on the bus, and Anahera was sitting in the seat beside his. It seemed like the morning, with her sitting on him and joking around, was an eternity ago. She turned to him, her gaze not spiteful or angry.

"Yes." She said sighing. Anahera didn't sound upset. Mostly she sounded tired, too old. How her care free attitude could be completely destroyed by a day of wild rumors made Warren wish he could protect her. Maybe it was because she was Will's cousin, maybe it was because she had seemed so happy before, but he felt bad for her. It was almost close to a parental instinct, he could imagine himself interrogating Lash at Anahera's door on homecoming night. He shook off the impulse as quickly as possible; Anahera would not appreciate such behavior.

"I just don't understand what you see in that guy. He's beat up so many good people, he's terrorized innocent children."

"But he's so… charismatic. He's not like anybody I have ever met before. And besides, he says that if it really bothers me then he'll try and be a little nicer to people." It was so sweet that Warren could just about hurl. He was almost sure it was lies, but he knew saying this would just give Anahera grounds to kill him.

"Okay, okay, you can be a judge of character, I'm sure. And I pity the man who has to tousle with you. Wow, I sound like an old person." At the Anahera smirked, "Anyways, I'm not going to go on about this. Just know that if he hurts you, Will and I have a right to kill him."

"What about me? Don't I have a right to kill him?"

"What kind of gentlemen would we be if we let a lady engage in such unsporting behavior?"

"I wasn't aware that the two of you were gentlemen." She said coolly.

"Oh, that stung Annie-girl. I think I might need Nurse Spex to get on that."

"Shut up, Peace." She said laughing. Good, laughter meant she didn't hate him.

"So, speaking of relationships, you're a girl-"

"Yes, thank you for noticing."

"Ahem, anyways, is there a way that women prefer to be broken up with?"

"Why, is Lash asking?"

Warren chose to ignore this comment. "I mean, say I want to break up with my girlfriend, theoretically of course. What should I do?"

"Hmm… wait, this is not about Layla and Will, correct?"

"Nope."

"And Zack and Magenta are still going strong?"

"Disgustingly as ever."

"In that case, I think you should take Crystal to a sad place, some place she knows you know she does not like going. Maybe she has a least favourite restaurant or something of that nature?"

"Well, if she is going to get dumped shouldn't she at least get to eat a nice meal?"

"No, because then you'll say 'I've got something important to tell you,'" she said in a comically low voice. "And she will think you are asking her to homecoming, or worse, ready to take your relationship to the _next level_."

Warren looked at her, horrorstruck. "You're fourteen!"

"Correct…" she said.

"You aren't supposed to know about that kind of stuff! You are supposed to sweet and innocent and think going all the way is French kissing!"

"Really? Is that what you thought when you were fourteen? Were you sweet and innocent Mr. Peace?"

Warren thought about this for a minute, she had a good point. "Well, you are a girl."

"You keep bringing that up. I think you have a problem."

Warren rolled his eyes, but smiled. This kid was definitely destined for either fame or the loony bin.

"Later Warren!" Anahera called. Her stop was rapidly approaching as she gathered up her things from off the seat and into her bag. When the bus finally came to a screeching hault she jumped up and raced down the stairs. She turned around and waved as the bus sped away, and Warren waved back, smiling all the way.

Silly kid.

Warren took Crystal to the Paper Lantern, the one place he knew she didn't prefer. She seemed troubled by this decision. However, she let it go once he snuck her a small basket of bread sticks from the Italian diner across the street. It was windy outside, and they got a table in the back. Tara, the girl he'd swapped shifts with to have the night off, served them. They both ordered only water, as Warren had told her that it wsa just a quick thing he had to tell her. They sipped, Crystal messing with her ice cubes and biting her lip in an adorable way.

"So…" he said, sighing deeply.

"Yeah." She seemed to know it was coming, but wanted to prevent it from happening. He felt the same way.

"I was thinking maybe… maybe we could take a break."

"Yeah, I kind of thought that this was it. Why?"

"Because it feels like, like you're in love with me because you should be.

"Well of course I am."

That was not something Warren had planned or expected.

"What?"

"Warren, we're friends. We're boy in girl. Have you heard this story before?"

"Wait, so you only started dating me because it was what was expected of you?"

"Warren, don't exaggerate this."

"I am not exaggerating!" That was loud. But justified.

"Calm down, people are staring."

"Isn't that what you want? You only got to know me because people called you brave. You only bothered with me so you could say you were friends with some notorious bad boy. I bet the only reason we were dating in the first place is because you wanted to friggin' tame me!" He was shouting now, but instead of cowering and apologizing like she should have been, Crystal was getting mad.

"Tame you? You don't need to be tamed, you need to be caged! Do you know how amazingly boring it is, listening to you ramble on about your mom, or how you just want to know why you are here. I know you so well it makes me sick."

"Know me?" _That_ was an outrageous statement. Knowing somebody was more than just having the right answer to their problem. Knowing somebody meant not just nodding in the right places. He was starting to figure that out.

"Warren, I have been your friend for a long time, so I can speak for you when I say that this is a really big mistake."

"You were never my friend! You think I don't know the difference between friendship and simply swallowing my words because you want to look cool. I might not have noticed before, but I sure do now. You're just a sieve; I have poured my life into you and you just drain out everything but the benefits.

"God Warren, you are so over dramatic!"

"Me? 'Oh my God Warren,'" His voice was a breathy falsetto. "'You are so right!' I could have been telling you that I was half microwave and you just would have nodded, giggled, and smiled."

"Who was there holding your hand when mommy left you all alone in an empty house?"

"You were, yet somehow it only made me feel worse."

"Ugh, I don't know why I waste my time with you Chase!"

"Chase?"

And then it all clicked. Chase was the school's resident laser boy. He could shoot beams out of his eyes at any where from tickle to stun. Crystal and he had always been friends, constantly teasing each other on the school grounds and hanging out. She always seemed to listen when Chase talked, and they had gone out for a while. He was a tough guy on campus, and she was seen as his tamer. But then early last year Chase had been transferred to a military school and Crystal was left without a title.

She and Chase hadn't broken up, she just needed to be a big name around school. That explained why she didn't want to much of a physical relationship. Actually it explained a lot of things.

"I'm leaving." He said, getting up and glaring. But then, about a meter away he turned on his heel to face her. "No, you are leaving. This is my comfort zone, and you are not ruining it with your bad karma." He was mocking her own believes in Zen Buddhism and karma. This was yet another act, seeing as she'd been lying to him all along.

She glared and left, the temperature in the room dropping as she did. He went behind the counter and informed Madame Ling that he was going to be working that night. After all, he reasoned, they needed an extra pair of hands. The local normal high school had just won their first football game of the season, and many fans had stopped by to celebrate over pork dumplings and fortune cookies.

He waited several tables and was kept very busy. That was good; being busy meant he didn't have time to feel. Finally, The Paper Lantern closed and he went to wash his hands and put away his apron.

"Warren," Madame Ling was the only other person left, and she was beckoning him to come sit beside her in a cushioned booth. He came quickly and obediently, and had a sinking feeling telling him he knew what she wanted to talk about.

"You broke up with your girlfriend." She said simply. It was odd how she could sum up the night in such a simple phrase.

"She was not really my girlfriend. I just thought she was…"

Madame Ling's eyebrows went up at this, but she was silent and motioned for him to continue with his story.

"She, she was really dating another guy who goes to a different school. She was just using me for my image."

"Image?" That was another nice thing about Madame Ling; she didn't know about his school life and probably wouldn't care. She called him her son, and was never judgmental if he needed to bring home food from work to feed himself.

"I'm kind of seen as the tough guy, and she thought that if she dated me it would make her the cool chick."

"Ah, I see."

"Madame Ling, if you don't mind me asking, how are you always so happy? I have seen people rip you off, people discriminate against you, and it doesn't get to you. How do you do it?"

"Ancient Chinese secret."

This made Warren laugh, and feel a little better.

"I do not know Warren-san. I am old, I have lived through many things. It takes a lot to upset me."

Warren smiled.

"But I tell you something. Seeing that girl treat you so badly made me very angry. I wanted to punch her right in the face!"

And then she did an impression of a boxer. She was a crazy old Chinese lady, but she was one of the best people in Warren's life.

"Thank you Madame Ling, you have made me feel a lot better."

"My pleasure Warren. And before you leave, have a fortune cookie or two."

He grabbed his jacket, then stopped by the fortune cookie jar before exiting the restaurant. It was dark, when the sun set most of the warmth had gone with it. The small downtown area was dusted with flashing with neon lights coming off a bar. Once he walked behind it all he could see was darkness, and then as the last of glaring streetlights faded he could see the moon. This was one of the reasons he didn't mind not being able to afford a car. Humming softly he made his way through alleyways until he was out on open road. The forest he was walking through hummed with life all around him. It was comforting to know other living creatures surrounded him. But how their lives were much simpler than his. You just had to worry about getting food for you and your family, and making it through winter.

And then it hit him.

This whole thing had just been another part of his winter. It had started a long time ago, with his father, and his mother too. When Captain America had torn his family apart, when his mom had gotten a full time job over seas, when he had slowly lost all his friends, when for a few long months he'd been on drugs, and when he had lost his first love. It was all just a few months of snow and sleet, and he knew that when you hit rock bottom, you always had a beautiful spring to build up to.

He was almost home when he remembered the fourtune cookies. He opened the first one, took a bight, and spit out the paper. "Hard times spring fourth happiness and prosperity" Well, that could not have been more creepily accurate. The second one read, "You will soon be a barer of bad news". That gave him an idea. He turned around and starting running. He was going to have a little talk with Chase.

It was nearly midnight when he finally got home. Chase had gotten quite upset when he was told of his girlfriend's activities. Or, his ex-girlfriend's. _Dumped twice in one night,_ he thought, _Crystal is really loosing her touch._

And with that last thought he fell into a deep peaceful sleep.

**4,215 words of type, yeah! And that's not counting either author's notes. While I didn't have a snow day and thusly did not make two chapters, this is my longest (And quite possible my favourite written) chapter to date! Crystal and Warren are over, I don't know why I wrote them a relationship in the first place. Once again I would like to remind everyone that this is not a Anahera/ Warren fic, notice the stress I put on his **_**paternal**_** instincts. Anyways, props to The Academy Is… who helped influence this chapter. You guys are fabulous. Oh, and if anybody can figure out Madame Ling's joke, let me know it a review and you will get a fabulous prize of your choice! Now for something completely different. (Yeah, Monty Python!) A friend of mine read one of the previous chapters and asked if I was writing a story which in Warren would be gay with Will. The answer is: No. Warren is not involved with any of the Strongholds (Except for that one night with Josie at last year's prom…) (Just kidding! Tee hee…) So now I am at almost forty-five hundered words. Actually, before I started typing that last sentence I had exactly 4444 words. To make a long story short (Ha ha, that ship has sailed) right now I am just wasting space, so adios, Read and Review, all that good stuff.**

**Peace and Hair Grease!**

**(Okay, I had to add one more word to have over forty-five hundred. Sue me.)**


	5. The Places Where We Go

**I'm back! Woah, I haven't uploaded anything in three whole days. Most of you will beg to differ, saying that I have been gone since Thursday. This, however, is not correct. I uploaded a new story on Thursday, which you all should check out, at least if you have ever read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Anyways, I was going to finish and post this on Sunday, but a series of distractions, well, distracted me. Anyways, here's the new chapter now!**

Warren woke up to a blaring radio station. He rolled over, it was time from him to get ready for school and he didn't particularly want to. Suddenly, he had a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. Butterflies zoomed around his stomach and his guts were jumping. He got up, ran to the toilet, and threw up a fiery inferno.

Mentally, he kicked himself. He hadn't burned anything in a couple days, the buildup from the unused friction had stored itself right in his gut. Quickly, he grabbed a candle off of a shelf above his sink. He lit it and immediately felt a little better, though he knew he needed to at least start a fire the size of a small dog. Listening to his neighbor's Chihuahua yap on and on, he almost did, but then realized how much trouble it would be for his mom to explain why her son was terrorizing his normal neighbor's dog. Not that Mrs. Card was normal. She was constantly learning some strange and worldly dance move. Seeing a 63 year old over weight woman belly dance was not his idea of wholesome family fun, or unwholesome solitary fun either.

Sighing, he went into his shabby living room and bent over the fireplace. He shifted around the embers from his last fire, almost three weeks ago, and remember that he needed more fire wood. Which meant that he would have to wait until after school to go down and buy firewood.

Maybe he could do some burning in his technique class, though they had been focusing on meditation. Their usual teacher, Mr. Barofe, was sick and the substitute was a seventy plus cross dresser, who enjoyed yoga and talking about the group's feeling. Warren knew some cross dressers from the time where he had worked at a circus, and this man was an insult to all of them. He didn't mind the yoga, but the endless and pointless jabber about emotions was tiring, and when he was asked how he felt, it was often very, very awkward.

Another thing he was worried about, Crystal was in almost all of his classes. They grouped the elementals together, and she, Layla, and Warren had a tendency to be in groups together. Working with her was one of the last things he wanted to do.

He got dressed and got to work on making himself some eggs. He poured in peppers, mushrooms, and a lot of cheese. Finally, he burned it, just a little. It was good, though a little over cooked.

His stove had been broken since April.

The bus was quite, he grabbed a seat in the back where nobody would notice him. He waited a few stops, and then Anahera got on. She sat in the seat next to his, and they didn't talk only shared the earlier morning silence. She looked about as tired as he felt, and he was very surprised that she could remain conscious.

"Rough night?" he asked, and she nodded meekly. You knew Anahera was wiped out when she was too tired for conversation. They sat in silence, the bus rhythmically making its way to school on the bumpy streets. A particularly large pothole nearly sent all of the students flying, and Warren swore loudly. This at least got Anahera to laugh, though after she returned to her zombie-like state.

Warren wondered what Anahera had been doing the previous night, he made a mental note to ask Will when they got to school. He could only imagine what trouble the young girl could have been getting into. Was there some sort of Stronghold superhero battle? He was worried about her for some reason; she looked frail and sick.

"Stronghold!" He called, jumping the last step of the bus and racing towards Will. He finally caught up with the younger boy, panting and sweating through his leather jacket. Will looked almost as tired as Anahera did, but he managed to smile up at his friend and ask how his morning was going,

"What's up with Anahera and you, you're both barely alive this morning."

"It was a long night…." Under Will's eyes were dark purple bags, his hair was mussed, and his breath smelled like he hadn't brushed. "Anahera had a real rough evening yesterday. She got real sick and had to go to the hospital."

"The hospital? Is she okay?" Anahera did look pretty bad, what was she doing in school if she had spent the evening in the hospital?

"Yeah, just a little anemic." Will muttered, before yawning and stretching.

"Anemic?" Warren said, alarmed. "Doesn't that happen when you loose a lot of blood?" What kind of illness had Anahera been suffering from? He shuttered at the possibility her doctor believed in blood letting.

Will simply shrugged, yawned again, and rubbed his eyes. Layla frowned at his semiconscious state; she had obviously noticed his drowsiness as well.

"Are you sure she's alright?" Layla's brow was furrowed.

"Yeah, she's fine. Totally." And with that Will walked off sleepily towards Ethan and Zack.

"What is up with him?" Warren asked. He and Layla were good friends, he had gotten used to her hippie ways. She made him laugh and always knew the best place for vegetarian food.

"I don't know. Anahera was way too tired to talk this morning, and we both know how much help Will has been."

"I am not sure, I think there is something else going on here." Layla said suspiciously. Her big brown eyes squinted at the retreating figure of her boyfriend. "Will is covering something up, I can feel it."

"You think?" Warren asked. Will had acted strangely, but he had attributed that to the lack of sleep. What could the boy be covering up, it was not as though Will or Anahera Stronghold were known for being unstable or secretive. Not like him.

"I know it, and I am going to get to the bottom of this." Layla ran off after Will, and Warren made his way to his locker. It was a foggy morning, and because of the school's anti gravity, Sky High always got the worst of the clouds. It made him feel worse than he had that morning, the wetness and coolness surrounding him.

Fumbling through the pockets of his jacket, he founds some matches and paper. These were safe things to burn. He always carried some with him, just in case he was feeling as he was today. Anxious, excited, a loose cannon. He was surprised that he had been so good, usually if he didn't use his powers for a couple days he had a tendency to blow up household objects and start fire to small animals.

After burning everything he had in his jackets, Warren was still feeling nerious and tense. The warning bell sounded and he bit his lip. He would just have to make it until lunch, where he could sneak off campus and burn some trees. Layla would not approve, but she wouldn't approve of him accidentally setting the school on fire either.

The late bell sounded, and his head jerked up. The halls were empty; he'd been to preoccupied to notice the people slowly trickling out to their classrooms. He ran to his homeroom, nearly jerking the handle off of the door.

"Ah Mr. Peace, finally decided to join us I see." Medulla was in a foul mood; Warren had picked a bad day to be late for homeroom.

"I'm sorry Mr. Medulla, I lost track of time. It will not happen again."

"Hmph." Medulla turned around and began writing the day's lesson plane on the board. Looking at his teacher's small, neat print reminded Warren he had to get his permission slip signed for taking the drivers' ed course offered after school. He would have to call Myra that night; he hoped she wasn't far from home. The teachers usually let him slide on signed documents; they knew his mother worked abroad. However, the drivers' education teacher, Mrs. Arnold, was a Nazi when it came to written permission. Worse, she did not like Warren at all. Apparently her son had fought against Barron Battle and been horribly injured. He had made it out alive, and with all of his limbs nonetheless, but Mrs. Arnold hated him anyways.

Warren was tired, he had only gotten about six hours sleep the night before and was worn out from hurling flames. He doodled absentmindedly on his daily planner, rockets and soldiers and giant exploding frogs. After staring at the page for a moment, he realized that he really needed more sleep.

"Yo, Peace." Steven Peyton, the super monkey-like boy was tossing rumpled up pieces of paper at him. "Are you really banging Stronghold's cousin?"

Steven Peyton received the answer to that question in the form of burned feet and a flaming assignment book.

"Peace." Lash was talking to him. He was ignoring Lash. This was the way the world worked. This was the way their world worked.

"Warren?" He didn't know that they were on a first name basis. Last year it was easy, they could hate each other back then. Then Anahera had come and thrown a wrench in everything, made it all so complicated. That was what she did best.

"What do you want Havilah?" Warren was still not so comfortable with this first name situation. Lash observed this and sighed.

"You and Anahera are tight, correct?" Warren didn't appreciate the way he said her name. It was a nice way of saying it, like he was saying a prayer, but coming from Lash he did not trust it at all.

"Yeah, I know her and enjoy her company, not her ass."

Lash glared at the boy, he was not making this easy.

"Shut up Peace, I listen to her as much as you do. You are not her only friend."

Warren rolled his eyes. "What do you want Lash?"

"So we _are_ on a first name thing. Cool. Anyways, is she mad at me? She's been quiet all day, and all moody. So what's up?"

Warren sighed heavily, this was the question he had been asking himself all day. "I am not sure Lash, she's just tired I guess. Will says she got awfully sick yesterday and spent the entire night in the hospital. I haven't asked her about it, but hell, when I smiled at her during lunch she about killed me. She is not in a good mood today, and I don't think you pestering her to get cheery is going to help her feel any better."

"I don't care about her being cheery Warren, I am just…. Worried about her. She's just a kid, you know?"

And suddenly Warren felt a huge amount of respect for Lash Havilah.

"Okay." He said. Lash looked at him funnily. "Go ask her. Maybe she'll talk to you." Warren felt like an old man. This was his enemy, why was he helping him get the girl? He shook his head, this wasn't just any girl, and Anahera would not appreciate him placing her in such a clichéd phrase.

"Um, thank you?" Lash said before turning and running off to find Anahera.

He was all right, for an ex-super villain.

The day was almost over, Warren just had to sit through one more hour of class and he would be free. He had made it through the day. Crystal was sick, or so the story went. Warren thought that the more likely story was that she was at home bawling and eating ice cream. He was surprised at himself, normally this would have made him fell almost sorry, but not today. This was a new Warren, a Warren who didn't care what Crystal thought of him. This new Warren was a pleasant change, he was starting to like him.

Drumming his fingers on the desk he was sitting on, he absentmindedly hummed a tune. Then Warren realized he was humming along to something, though it took him a moment to figure out what. Through Medulla's open window came the song of the ice cream truck.

"What the hell?" this came from Martin Medulla himself. The teacher stood up and went over to the window. He opened it and leaned out, before seeing the cause of the disturbance.

"Ron, what on earth are you doing?

Ron Wilson, no longer a bus driver, was sitting behind the wheel of a giant yellow ice cream truck. He dipped his hat at Medulla and hit his vehicle's horn. Warren then realized that the truck was made of two melded together school buses. He raised his eyebrows, that was an unexpected quitting gift.

"Hey Ron!" Ethan called out to the former employee. Wilson had been his bus driver and they'd worked side by side to de-pacify the babies at homecoming.

"Hello there, Ethan. How are things?"

"You know, same old, same old. What's up with the new ride?"

Ron Wilson laughed a hearty laugh, and smiled at both Ethan and Warren. "I figure you kids were working hard at school, so I thought I should give you a little present. Powers okay-ed it." He added the last part as an after thought, as though anyone would question free ice cream.

"Sweet man! Where'd you get all that frozen yogurt from?" Warren poked Ethan.

"What?" The boy asked.

"Frozen yogurt and ice cream are two different delicacies."

"Whatever." Said Ethan, rolling his eyes and smiling at the same time.

"Actually, I got all this as a bonus from the job." Ron was still working for the mayor, who often gave him medals and trophies for the work he did. However, this was the first time he had received gratitude in the form of a frozen desert.

"Some villain was planning to freeze the city, and when I stopped the dastardly do-badder's nefarious plan, I got to keep the ice cream he was going to use!"

"Dastardly?"

"Nefarious?"

"Do-_badder_?" This came from Ethan.

"Sorry, I am still using the comic dialog, aren't I? Anyways, long story short, free ice cream!" Ron shouted the last bit through a mega phone, and within moments people came racing out of the school and on to the lawn.

Warren, Ethan, and even Mr. Medulla crawled out of the windows, landing on the freshly planted begonias. Inching away as innocently as possible, they then turned their attention to Ron and his free sweetened dairy products.

Kids were swarming the former bus driver like he was Jesus or Buddha or Oprah. People were squeezing in to get closer to the line the teachers had started to forcefully form.

"God, it's LOUD!" Shouted Ethan over the roar of the children.

It was loud. The scene was like a mosh pit, a bunch of screaming, angry teenagers. However, the difference was that opposed to screaming about powerful lyrics or blasting music or even cute lead singers, they were screaming for ice scream. And at that moment, Warren felt it would be a sin not to say a certain something.

"Well, we all scream for ice cream."

Ten minutes later they were on the buses leaving Sky High and her shining glory, not to mention all of the extra ice cream in Ron's bus. Anahera looked tired and old and sad, so Warren decided to make a rather daring move and sit by her.

"Hey Anahera, are you okay?"

She groaned, rolled her eyes and frowned. "Not you as well. Lash was on me about that earlier this afternoon. I'm fine, okay? I'm just sick and tired."

"Sick and tired of what?"

And all of a sudden it looked like she was going to break down and cry. But instead she sighed and held it in, which made her look worse than before.

"Nothing. Everything. Stuff you wouldn't understand without me having to tell you way to much stuff."

Warren felt slightly hurt about this, didn't she trust him? "Have you told Lash about this 'stuff'?" he asked. He knew that she would be upset about him doing so, but he really did need to know. It shouldn't have bothered him, but he didn't like the feeling Lash was getting more information than he.

"Do you really have to ask? I am not the kind of person to keep secrets from people, especially people I like. But if I am keeping a secret from you, it is probably a secret to everyone else."

He sighed, feeling both ashamed and better. "Hey, does Will know?"

Anahera grinned slightly. "Yeah, but he is as 'mum' as I am. Don't even try to get it out of him. Besides, it doesn't matter. It is something that can be taken care of."

"Taken care of? Are you sick? Are you guys in some sort of trouble? Money? Drugs? The super hero business? Your mom?"

That last question struck a nerve in Anahera, he could tell. She glared at him and turned away, towards the window. Her gaze reflected in the glass and Warren could swear he saw tears in her eyes. "Just give it a rest, Peace." She sounded defeated, and Warren instantly felt horrible.

"I'm sorry, I just, I just want to know what's going on."

She sighed again. "I know. Just chill though. It's nothing."

"Promise me this, you'll be okay."

"God Warren, you are such a drama queen."

And with that she gave him a parting smile and made her way off of the bus.

However, a sinking feel in him said that she had not promised anything.

When Warren got home he had a recently new message on his answering machine, which was odd because he didn't know many people who were home at 2:28, which was when the call had been made.

The message was vague, he couldn't understand a word over the crackling of what sounded like AM radio. He looked on his caller ID and didn't recognize the number, though the first three numbers were 216, indicating the call was made from somewhere in downtown Maxville.

"Hello?" Asked a voice. It was Lash, and Warren kicked himself. Great, Lash had his phone number and now they were calling buddies.

"Hey Lash, it's me Warren. So, any reason you called my house?"

"I didn't know your cell number."

He frowned at this, Lash was trying to be funny and it was almost working. Though the boy had proven to be less of a jerk than was once thought, he was still a bully. Ethan still had a slight fear of being trapped in a locker, though now no one would dare attempt such a thing.

"Why are you calling me?" Warren barked. He wasn't a man of patience, and he was starting to get the feeling he had in the morning. The feeling that said he was going to puke embers.

"I wanted to talk." Lash said, calmly, as though this was something the two did frequently.

"You wanted to what?"

"Meet me at 3:00, down by Grove Park. Bring a bike or something, because I am going to take you some where."

"What?"

"See you there."

And with that Lash hung up.

**Sort of my kind of sad excuse for a cliff-y. Where are Lash and Warren going to go? I'm not even sure! Anyways, I'm getting in the horrible habit of leaving long, rambling author's notes, so this is just going to be a quick thing, but Sunday I got distracted by none other than: Blink-182 got back together! Yay! Anyways, just wanted to be the first to tell you. Adios!**


	6. When We're Old and Gray

**Hello, hello, hello. It has been a long time since my last update, and I apologize for that. My mother has been on the computer typing up my sister's science project and preparing a big speech/ presentation thing. I also think I may have forgotten to put a disclaimer in my last chapter. Well, long story short: I don't own Sky High. Surprising, isn't it?**

It was getting cool out and Warren grabbed a jacket sitting on the kitchen table before leaving his house. Locking the door behind him, he glanced at the setting sun in the distance. It was miles away from any humanity, yet to him it felt so human.

The air was damp and it smelled as though there was going to be a storm later on. Warren took deep breaths of the fresh autumn air and felt calm, despite his worries about meeting Lash. He walked over slowly to his old, depilated garage. Myra promised to by him a car, but he knew that it was empty words. The super hero business was not as glamorous as it looked. Warren knew that he would never get into college without a major scholarship, and driving was expensive anyways. Gas was costly, and Warren didn't trust himself in a small metal space with gasoline in such a short distance.

His bike was an old green Schwinn, its paint was peeling and the tires needed to be inflated, or better yet, changed. It creaked and the chain required oiling, though he knew he would probably forget to do it.

It was windy and Warren was trying to concentrate on burning the fall leaves just by looking at them. He was not very successful, but that was probably a good thing. What would he do after words? Putting fire out with his mind would probably a bit more difficult. It always strained him to put out the flames that consumed him whenever he got too mad, or even happy. Once the fire in him started burning it simply wouldn't go out. Fire was uncontrollable, burning everything in its path. Destroying everything in its path. Warren did not want to destroy anything; he just wanted to be at peace. When he was on fire, he was at his greatest peace.

Checking his watch, 3 o'clock grew nearer and nearer. Warren's breath was ragged; he had not been bike riding in a long, long time. The bicycle was much too small, his legs were cramped and he was getting more and more uncomfortable. Damn that Lash, he wondered how he was planning on riding all the way out to Groves Park. Panting, he made a turn onto Bright Lane. It was a crowded street full of shabby houses, like his own. But unlike his own, they were filled with people. Voices of mothers, who were calling their children to dinner. Porches crowded with elderly women and men, and their grandchildren, all laughing and smiling. Dogs barked and birds sang; he could hear an man and boy singing a song about laundry. Warren was mad at these people, mad at them for being so happy. They had mothers and fathers who were always there for their children, always their to care for them and keep them safe.

Cigar smoke wafted from a bright yellow garage, cigarettes mixed in as well. They smelled like his father, and he had to take deep breathes, reminding himself that these people did nothing wrong. Innocent people, the kind his father killed.

When he finally got to Groves Park Lash was waiting for him, sitting on a picnic table. He was smoking a cigarette, eyes closed. It surprised Warren, he didn't know that Lash could be peaceful. The boy was loud and obnoxious, yet here he was quiet and shy. For a moment Warren attributed this to him just being trashed, but then Lash coughed and spit the smoke out.

"God, I hate those things." He said, eyes still closed.

"Then why are you smoking them?" Warren asked. He made his voice sound high and unfamiliar. Lash didn't move or look surprised. All he did was shrug, his eyes still closed.

"Old people give them to me. They think I should start now and get used to wasting my life and money on things that don't matter in the long run."

"Random old people just come up to you and give you addictive substances?"

"My neighbors. They aren't really old, but they act like it in a way. They're constantly hung over

"So, quick question." Lash nodded. "How the hell did you know who I was?"

Lash laughed. "Warren, you don't know how obvious you are. Your feet are close together, so your jeans rub together, making that weird jean rustling sound. Also, despite your huge five-foot-eight, you walk like a girl. And quite frankly, I wouldn't "

"I am, like, five-foot-ten Lash. You are just so tall and stupid, you do not understand what it is like to be a normal sized person. And why do you think my walk is feminine? Do you think I don't know I'm a freaking sex God?" That was a bit louder than he had planned, and Lash started chuckling.

"You think a lot of yourself, don't you?"

"Well if I don't know one else will." This got Lash to stop lacking and look at Warren seriously for a moment. He then sighed and hopped off of the table.

"Come on Peace, let's get going. The sun ain't going to burn forever."

Fifteen minutes later Warren was pedaling harder than he ever had in his life. Lash was obviously a trained biker; he would have no chance of keeping up even if he had a brand new bike.

Several sharp turns, cuss words, and a long winding road later, they were at a slightly shady street. It was full of graffiti, which made him tense. Through the years Warren had learned that the more writing a place had on it, the more likely that there were bad people around. However, the small houses were rundown enough to make him feel sympathetic for whoever was living there. Warren tried not to be stereotypical, though every molecule was screaming that this was not a good place to be. People stared at Lash and him, mostly him, as they slowly made their way down the street. It made him feel uncomfortable. He never saw the people, just the tattered, swishing drapery and the occasional lock of hair. One toothless woman however, kept staring at him like he was some sort of circus attraction. Whenever he looked her way, she pretended to be gardening, though this was a very obvious ruse. Her lawn and garden were nothing but weeds and dirt. Warren brought a smile to his own face picturing what Myra would say. She felt that gardens and lawns should be constantly taken care of. It was a little known fact that, because of her, Warren was an amateur botanist. He spent many hours shopping at a local greenhouse every spring. When Layla had finally found out about him doing this she insisted on accompanying him. This was not a choice of hers that he had particularly enjoyed, but when she had over heard him talking to Ethan about varieties of petunias and asked him a seemingly innocent question about where he got his knowledge, she had become a woman on a mission. He didn't notice what was really happening until she was getting in his car and they were past the point of no return.

"Lash, are we almost there?" he called ahead. The boy had slowed down to a leisurely pace, or at least it was a leisurely pace for Lash.

"Why do you care, it isn't like anyone is going to be waiting up for you." This statement surprised Warren, as did the way it was said. Lash did not say anything in a mean way; rather he was just stating a fact. Nobody would be crying if Warren broke his own non-existent curfew. He wondered how Lash knew that his mother was away.

"I am just wondering. That's all." But Lash was slowing down; he was before the threshold of a vast forest. The trees swayed in the wind. It would have been pretty, but a nagging feeling in the back of Warren's mind was wondering if Lash brought him here to kill him. He knew it was a foolish thought, but in his tired, curious mind it made sense. Maybe it was really a shady place, or maybe he was going to be lead into a forest where no one could hear his screams. The trees would hide his body, and nobody would go looking for a troublesome pyro.

Warren took a deep breath. Obviously he had watched one too many horror movies. There was no way that Lash was going to kill him.

"This way." The aforementioned called out to Warren, setting his bike on the side on the pathway into the forest. Warren did the same with his, following Lash uncertainly. _Okay,_ he thought, _At least you know that if the time comes you can burn Lash to the ground. Forest plus fire equals one burnt little stretched out dead man._ Shaking the thoughts from his head, he stared out into the massive wood.

"So… What am I looking at here?" he asked Lash, who sighed.

"Alright, on the other side of these trees is a very special institution, Bardi Clinic. It is a private hospital dealing with people with exceptional curious medical conditions. Or, in the case we will be discussing today, average sickness that are had by curious people."

"What are you trying to say Lash? Curious people?"

"People," he said quietly. "Like you and I."

"And like Anahera." Warren said, now fully understanding the significance of the trip.

"Yes. People like Anahera. People, or rather, a certain person who is Anahera."

"So you are telling me that you think the reason Anahera was so tired wasn't just because she had come down with a little illness. That it was because she has some on going medical treatment?"

"I, I don't really know the exacts of it all. But yes, I doubt that what Anahera had was just a case of the sniffles. My mom tried to get me an appointment there last weekend, because she heard that they erve supers. Anyways, it is a no go, but I did see 'Anahera Stronghold' on the waiting room list. And the receptionist said it was for people with intense medical problems only."

"Intense is a loose term. Diabetes is intense. Asthma attacks are intense. Having your epilepsy medicine get screwed up because you ate a grapefruit muffin is intense. It is probably nothing."  
Lash looked at Warren skeptically for a moment, before shrugging. "I guess you could be right." Another sigh, this tie filled with worry that Warren had never seen on Lash before. "Well, whatever it is I am sure Anahera will be fine. She is one tough cookie, you know?" He began to laugh. "Actually, the day she was mad and sick, I kept asking her and asking her why she was feeling so tired and acting cranky and stuff. Well anyways, it got to the point where I must have been pestering her or something, because she threw me into some lockers so hard that I made an indent!" Lash tittered nervously, waiting for Warren to join him. When he realized that that was not going to happen he shut up and sighed heavily. Warren hated it when he sighed; it made him so much harder to hate him. It was always harder to be mad at Myra when she sighed; it made her seem so old and sad and fragile.

"Well, the sun isn't going to burn forever, we might as well get out of here and start back towards home."

"Hey man, nobody can steal that line. It is _mine_. And besides, if you are even going to attempt to try and be as cool, do _not_ be such a grammar Nazi."

Warren was slightly taken aback this, Lash was a bit cocky for somebody off in the dark would with the son of a notorious super villain. "Lay off," He began. "And I am not a grammar Nazi, just simply somebody with a second grade education."

Lash rolled his eyes and scoffed; Warren could tell he was enjoying this. Since Speed had gone off to live with Gwen, he had been left all alone by the student body. Not that Speed had ever been one for witty banter anyways, but Warren could feel Lash's pain nonetheless. It was hard being an outsider, being convicted of the crimes you had not yet committed, but everyone was so sure you were going to. Sometimes Warren wanted to torch the entire school down just so everyone would be happy and right. Well, maybe not happy. But right about him, which is what everyone wanted to be. If they weren't so sure that he was a delinquent in the making, then they might actually have to take the time to get to know him, and nobody wanted to do that.

Well, almost nobody. Layla had wanted to get to know him, but that was only to further her own exploits. He hated her sometimes for just using him so blatantly, but he couldn't really blame her. Without her convincing him to go that they should go to prom together, he wouldn't have really had any friends. He wondered if he and Anahera were doing the same thing to Lash. Not using him, but slowly including him in their lives. He was learning he wasn't as big or bad as he had been from before, and it was pretty obvious what Anahera thought.

It was dark when he got home; he and Lash had parted ways quickly at Groves Park. As friendly they were getting to be towards each other it was still odd to be chummy with the person who used to be his worst enemy in public. It was raining outside and Warren was glad that he had arrived before the storm had started. Heavy drops of water pounded the roof of his house; he made a mental note to check to see if anyplace was leaking. On his way home, he had picked up firewood and was now in the process of lighting fire to each piece very slowly and then putting it in the old hearth. Embers licked his fingers; it was as comfortable as anywhere else. Correction, it was more comfortable than most places he had been in. The fire raged peacefully, an art that Warren aspired to be able to do. It was angry so it let all of its ire, all of its burning fury out in the form of flames and smoke.

It was 9:30; he wasn't hungry or tired, just anxious. Some part of him was waiting, for what he didn't know. Then he heard a loud knock on his front door, startling him and almost making him jump. He rose from his position at the kitchen table, and stepped his way around a bag of ashes on his way to the foyer.

"Warren," It was Anahera. She was soaking wet, wearing a soggy oversized sweatshirt that almost went down to her knees. The hair she had told him about painstakingly straightening at lunch was know frizzy and curled in the humid weather. The hole in her old ratty converse was letting in water, which was coming from the puddle at the end of his porch steps. Anahera was slouching, something she never did. In all, it was a rather disturbing sight. She had been so put together before, and now she looked as though she had fallen apart completely.

"What the hell happened to you?" he asked, sounding a bit gruffer than he had intended. Anahera looked so weak, but now her eyes were full of anger. Anger, he realized, that was directed towards him. It was stupid, but it comforted him. She had anger, which meant that she hadn't wasted herself completely on sadness.

"A sad little girl comes knocking on your door and you ask her that? No wonder the only girlfriend you've ever had was not even that interested in you."

"Ouch, that last part stung a bit. But anyways, since when are you a 'little girl'?"

"Certain people called me one, which is why I came to talk to you. But you obviously do not know how to treat a distressed lady. You need to be more of a gentleman Warren. You will never get yourself a nice girl if you keep up such an act."

Warren rolled his eyes, and scoffed, but he was concerned all the same. "Who called you a sad little girl?" he asked.

"Lash. I hate his guts. He is so freaking nosey about my personally business, I never want to talk to that stupid loser again."

"He really is not that bad." Warren couldn't believe those words had just came out of his mouth. The afternoon he spent with Lash had improved his opinion of the boy, they were just getting to not be enemies. How had the senseless moron blown it in such a short amount of time?

"What? _You_ were the person who told me to stay away from him!"

"Well, I have thought about it, and you were right the first time. He is kind of nice and sometimes he is funny and he is also totally gorgeous." The last part was meant to make her laugh, make her rethink her anger towards Lash, but it didn't appear to be working.

"Screw that. He is a jerk who can_not_ mind his own business. You know something, he comes up to me and asks me what I was doing at Bardi Clinic!"

"That superhero doctor's office?" He asked, trying to look and sound innocent. Something told him that if Anahera hadn't been so distracted by Lash she would have seen through his ruse immediately and demanded to know what he was lying about.

"Yeah. He thinks I am, like, super sick or something. Which I am not, I'm just… not the most well I could be. But anyways, it is not any of his business."

"Maybe he is just… worried about you or something." Warren said, trying to word his sentences carefully. The last thing he wanted to do was upset Anahera when she was already in such a terrible mood. "I know I am."

And Anahera looked at up at him, her eyes big and her bottom lip trembling. A crack of thunder sent her jumping almost on top of him. She was standing in between his feet, making a somewhat awkward, somewhat touching moment between the to of them.

"Hey, Warren?" she asked, her voice was barely audible over the rolling thunder.

"Yes?" Was his own voice really that deep, or was it simply lowered by echoing off the mountains in the distance. He was almost shouting at the top of his lungs to be heard, and his throat had gotten sore, making him sound hoarse.

"Can we get off of your porch and into, I don't know, your nice warm and dry house?"

He laughed, not expecting her to ask anything else.

His house was in fact very warm, though less dry in the guest bathroom, which had flooded a bit. Anahera had insisted on helping him mop up the room, though the two of them working together in such cramped corners had led to a few tense moments.

"You know," She said, rolling up the sleeves of her sweatshirt, "I think I may have been to harsh on poor old Lash."

"Hey, Anahera?" She looked at him, her hair half dry. Her face was in a questioning expression and her clothes were finally less soggy. It all combined to give her a very odd appearance.

"Well," He began, being very careful. "I was wondering, why are you going to that clinic?"

Anahera took a deep breath and stared out of a window into the distance. It was silent, save for the raging thunderstorm going on outside. Warren gave up, but then she spoke, her voice sounding like she holding back tears.

And then, looking away she told him why she was going to the hospital. His blood was cold, an expression he never thought he would use. Anahera was looking away from him, facing the window and the winds and rain. Suddenly, he had a strange uurge. He didn't know where it came from, just that it was something he simply had to do. Warren hugged her, hugged her as a friend and brother.

After that, they had tried to act like it was a normal night. They laughed and talked and Anahera beat him in poker multiple times. However, there was still a nagging feeling in the back of Warren's mind. He had taken moments like these for granted in the past. Anahera was somewhat of a permanent fixture in his life; she had grown on him and he had accepted her. But now he realized that these moments, any of the moments they had shared together could have easily been her last.

At 8:15 Will came cheerfully knocking on Warren's door. It said a lot that his house was where people went looking for Anahera. It made him feel proud, happy that he was such good friends with someone and that everyone knew it.

"I swear," began Will as he escorted Anahera to her father's waiting car. "You spend more time with Warren then I do. Anahera, in two years he will be in university and you'll be stuck with me. How are you going to spend your nights then?"

Anahera had laughed, a beautiful, secure laugh that said she had already considered this. "Will, Warren and I will still be hanging out even when we're gray and old and you're pushing me into a wheelchair accessible van."

Though he had simply laughed at the time, as Warren closed the door he had a sad, melancholy thought. What if Anahera never lived to be gray and old?

**I think I like this chapter. I haven't particularly given much thought to what disease Anahera has, but I think I will just go with cancer or something. Hope this hasn't been to predictable, I try and keep away from the pre-formatted stories.**

**Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!**

**PS Did you know that Valentine's Day is the anniversary of the day in which Saint Valentine was brutally murdered? Just a little fun fact there.**


	7. Cause I Have Been Told

**And I'm back! I apologize for this taking so long, but life got in the way. Research projects and writers block destroyed my creativity for a while there, but I am pleased to be back to this story. Now without further adu- Oh, what's that you say? I'm missing a disclaimer? Well, if you think for one moment that I have any sort of right to Sky High, then you are more insane than I, my dear friend, and in that case your caretaker should be notified that you're surfing the internet.**

Warren was sleeping his way through homeroom, a peaceful way to ignore Medulla's endless rambling about the evils of corporate America. The dartboard he had made out of a picture of Michael Phelps was hanging in tatters on the whiteboard, which now had several holes in it. "CRACK IS WHACK" had been written over the poor boy's face, along with a rough sketch of an elderly man in a Speedo.

Sighing as he stretched out slowly, Warren decided that perhaps Medulla had some jealousy issues. He absolutely hated just about the entire faculty; save for Mr. Boy and the young, good looking choir teacher.

Then it hit him, he hadn't gotten Myra's permission for the driving course he was planning on taking. His hand raised and he sat up straight. He had to get to a phone.

"Mom, um, where are you?" He asked his mother from the office phone. Though it probably would have been easier and less embarrassing to use one of his friends' cell phones (The day he could afford one who be right after he won the lottery) he knew that Myra only took calls from pre-screen numbers, and Myra hadn't met any of his friends.

"I'm in Cleveland." She said, her voice was small through the receiver.

"What?" Asked Warren. "Where on earth is that?"

"Ohio. Stateside." This annoyed him slightly, he knew where Ohio was, just maybe not some of its cities. It was also very strange for her to be in the U.S., seeing as his mother worked mainly in South America, but he paid no attention to this detail.

"Oh, so I guess you can't come sign something for me then…"

He heard her exhale angrily. "Why can't they just get my vocalized permission?"

Warren explained to her the evils of Ms. Arnold and her almost pure hatred of Warren. He didn't mention Baron, but was sure his mother could work it out for herself.

"Well, I suppose I could contact the school and get something faxed." He smiled into the receiver. Learning to drive was something he had wanted to do for a very, very long time.

"You could have told me at dinner the other night. You've got to stop being so absentminded, Warren."

He would have loved to have told her that he did not want to waste his valuable time with her signing forms, but kept his mouth shut and simply hummed yes's and no's.

Fifteen minutes later a bell rang to signal the end of homeroom, and Warren walked to his first class with the signed permission slip in his back pocket. The halls were full of bustling students, and their voices echoed off the cream coloured walls.

"Hey, Warren!" Ethan's voice called to him. The boy was running down the hall in his direction, Warren was thankful that nobody had the nerve to trip him.

"You'll never believe what just happened!" He said, panting.

"Medulla finally got some with Powers?" Warren asked, half joking.

"Anahera kicked Boomer's ass!" He said, excited.

"WHAT?" Warren shouted. Quite a few people stared in our direction, but he disregarded this. "Does Will know about this? Why would she do something so freaking stupid? What was she thinking? Is Boomer dead? And why was he egging her on? There should be laws against that, hell, I think there probably are some." Warren was going a mile a minute, spitting out questions and comments and shouting at random intervals, until it all just became an alarming disarray of words, which made little to no sense.

"Calm down!" Ethan finally shouted. "Boomer is alive, Anahera just lost her temper with him. She's in trouble, but there is some serious investigation going into his teaching methods. Funny thing is people are just now noticing that he's a bit tyrannical, when the students have been saying it for years."

"Damn straight." Warren nodded. "So what did she get mad about? Was it something Lord Douche Bag said?"

"Yeah, apparently he was commenting on her mom. Called her the daughter of a slut-whore."

"That bastard." He was angry, very angry. What kind of satanic pig would say something like that, especially to one of his students?

"All the cops are saying he was probably hammered." Said Ethan, as though he was reading his thoughts. "Who comes to school trashed, though? Not even Speed or Lash were that stupid."

Warren nodded in agreement once again, but felt the urge to say something on Lash's behalf. "He's not that bad, you know."

"Who?" asked Ethan, "Lash? Yeah, I guess not, Anahera is always going on about him and his amazing kindness and humor and other such things. I still hold a bit of a grudge though, understandably." It was understandable, though according to Anahera, Lash really wanted to say something, but he was simply just afraid of apologizing. Which rather annoyed Warren, seeing that he believed Lash should just grow some balls and get it all over with, but he never said anything.

Ethan checked his watch and said, "Well, I better get going, and you too. See you at lunch, Warren." And raced down the hallway. Warren was lucky his first period class was nearby, and quickly made his way there.

Lunch was an odd affair. Lash had taken to sitting with them, but because Anahera had been placed in the detention room with an in-school suspension, he looked quite uncomfortable. His brown paper bagged lunch was sitting on his lap, and he was perched very awkwardly and, Warren suspected, very uncomfortably on the corner of the lunch bench. The group ate in silent for a few minutes. Layla was also absent, she was suffering from the chicken pox, which she had picked up helping little kids plant flowers at her father's farm. Without her or Anahera, there was nobody to talk cheerfully, forcing them into conversations that they pretended not to enjoy.

"So," said Ethan, choosing to break the silence first. Warren knew that he hated uncomfortable silences such as this one, but wasn't pitying enough to help him kick-start small talk in a group full of the most oddly put together people ever.

"So, Will, how is Layla doing? I hope she comes back soon, home economics just isn't the same without her never ending knowledge of uses for the common tomato." This surprised Warren. Lash was trying to make conversation with a group of people who all, if not hated, then extremely disliked him.

"Uh," began Will, who was just as shocked at Warren at Lash's outburst. In fact, the entire table looked at Lash with odd expressions. Ethan was slightly bemused, Magenta looked as though Lash had just told some sort of cheesy joke, Zach was genuinely confused, and Warren himself looked at the scene with a smug smirk.

"Well, her mom is using some sort of remedy she got from a grizzly bear, and says that she's going to back by next weekend. I didn't know you took home economics."

"Well," began Lash. The faint trace of a smile played about his face. He was enjoying this, starting to enjoy them. They didn't exactly make the best company, but they were probably much better than Penny, Speed, and Gwen.

"When I was little, I wanted to grow up to be a big, talented chef. Then I found out that I was destined for a fate Bobby Flay wouldn't have dreamed of. I still cooked a lot though, so I thought that that class would be perfect for me. But it was more than cooking. It was like, gardening and sewing and all sorts of cool stuff. I am really learning a lot of stuff, and in a class full of chicks!" He gave a little, nervous laugh to show he was kidding. "I think everyone should take the course, it is really interesting." He finished.

"Gee Lash, I never would have took you for a fudge packer." This came from the monotone Magenta. Zach shot her a pleading look. He too, was interested in cooking, and though he was terrible at it, he always got very upset when somebody attached homophobic comments to men who cooked.

"Sorry about her, Lash." Said Ethan, who was trying his very best to be nice to Lash.

Lash took a deep breath and said. "Um, Ethan, I… I am sorry."

The group's eyebrows each rose in surprise, but most of all Ethan's.

"It was really cool about how you let me know about Anahera and how you've been nice to me even though I was kind of a jerk to you last year. Um, so, I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted, Lash." Ethan smiled.

"I am very disappointed in you, young lady!" Came Stewart Stronghold's voice. Warren could tell by the man's tone that this was mainly for show. He reasoned that if your child was the one to finally put Boomer in his place, the only rage you could portray was faked.

Anahera hung her head, though smirked at Warren and Will through her hair. Lash had wanted to accompany them and Mr. Stronghold on their trip to get Anahera, who was being held on the ground in a juvenile delinquent facility for troubled supers. However, when Lash announced his plans, both Will and Warren had protested. Stewart didn't know about his daughter's boyfriend, and the boys had decided that for Lash's sake, it was better to keep it that way.

"Well, no use dwelling on the past. Let's say we all go celebrate at Warren's house!" Said Will. He wasn't even trying to fake disappointment in his young cousin. Warren saw the humor in the situation, a bunch of people pretending to be sorry that a girl had told the truth and was not sorry about it. That was a lot of false apologizing. Boomer had even muttered a few words after sobering up. However, this was after he had found out about being put on job probation.

"I would love to join you guys, but I have some playing ability test to grade and register. I'll pick you all up at seven-thirty though." And with that the man left, smiling to himself about his daughter's behavior.

"Gee, Will." Came Warren's sarcastic drawl. "Thanks for including me in you plans to party." He did not really mind the two coming over, but he would have preferred at least a heads up. What if, for example, he had other company? But then he realized that there weren't any other people he would really have at his house. He laughed at this discernment, and Will shrugged. Anahera, on the other hand, smiled like a jackal.

"Actually," She began in a voice that was pure sugar and honey. "When I was at your lovely abode last, I noticed that, well, you suck at house keeping." Warren was very tempted to kill the both of them right then and there. He knew where this was going, and he did not like it one bit. He thought he did all right when it came to keeping his home up. How many other teenage boys did laundry, made dinner, folded, and dusted? Not to mention the time he spent doing dishes when he couldn't afford a dishwasher.

"So," Will continued for Anahera, who was now smirking at Warren with an evil look in her eyes. "We have decided to come over to Peace Manor and scour the place for any untidiness. And if and when was find said untidiness, we will be cleaning. Doesn't that sound like a lovely adventure?"

"I say," He began in a low, mock angry voice. "If you ever try and help me again, I'll roast you alive."

And with that the three teenagers took off in a mad dash towards Warren's house, chasing each other as they ran for blocks.

Warren's house was built in the 1920s, a time in America where bungalow housing was just developing. Particularly, Warren's home was a especially fine show of roaring twenties spirit, a grand craftsman build. It had white siding, though the past almost 90 years it had slowly become a yellow parchment colour. The best part of the house, according to Warren, was the porch. Though it was leaking in several spots (Mainly over the most direct path to the doorway,) and the wooden steps creaked, he enjoyed spending time on it. He often sat on the sagging railing and just listened to the sounds of the neighborhood. Bustling cars, mothers and children, birds, and the occasionally hopscotch song or nursery rhyme all floated his way. If he kept his eyes close he could imagine he was at the center of the universe, or, the center of his universe at least. The white paint was chipping off, the posts were battered with rain, and even the front door looked like it had been on the business end of a baseball bat, yet it was the most beautiful place in the world to Warren.

Will, however, disagreed. "This," He said, disgusted with state of the wood. "Is the first thing we should work on." Will was a shop junkie, this semester alone he had spent endless hours fiddling over wood and tools, trying to make a warped elm trunk into a suitable coffee table. The state of the wood disgusted him; it was battered, stretched, and trashed beyond belief. The entire porch looked like it could use a new coat of paint as well, but that was a project, he told himself, that could wait for the weekend.

"All right!" Piped up Anahera, cheerfully. She unknowingly agreed with Warren's thoughts on the space. To her it looked like a blast from the past, a time where people watched black and white movies, danced the Fox Trot and got dressed up just to go to the grocery store.

"I don't see how you guys can make my house look much better." Said Warren, because he was quite interested in Will and Anahera's plan.

"It will all get better in time!" Will sang in the voice of a popular pop singer, making both Warren and Anahera chuckle at his antics.

They started on the dilapidated front yard in earnest. Warren was in charge of weeding the flower gardens he had planted, though he didn't much see any purpose in this as the chilly breezes of September air whipped around him. It was a day more windy than usual; just a reminder that autumn was soon to turn into a bitter winter.

Anahera was mowing the lawn immaculately, her perfectionist tendencies showing in how she scrutinized every blade. Warren was half expecting her to pull out a ruler and measure the length of the sod. She whistled an unfamiliar tune as she pushed his ancient lawn mower over the turf. It had been found in the endless cavern that was Warren's garage, along with timber, pruning shears, gardening gloves and tools, and several saws, which Warren claimed to know nothing about.

Will was slowly repairing all the wood in the porch. He strengthened beams and replaced some altogether as he continued to try and secure the structure. Though withered and distorted, the old wood was surprisingly strong, and he supposed that it was possibly some sort of oak. A smile came to his face as he pictured Layla going on about how all of the world's oak was slowly being chopped down. She had gone on to explain that bamboo was a responsible and more eco-friendly option that most things should be made of. He had asked whether or not the pandas would appreciate this, and she had smiled that beautiful smile of hers and pecked him on the cheek.

It all took about an hour, with Anahera finishing their jobs early and going to help Will. It was a painstaking process, and they all were frustrated when apiece didn't fit. However, working together they got a great deal done, though Anahera and Will's strength had helped greatly, and Warren's fire melted the paint off of the unusable wood.

At around four o'clock they started on the inside of Warren's house. Will vowed to paint the porch and take his friend door shopping the following week, and after scrubbing the windows relentlessly they were in the cleaning zone. Warren thought that this was all very strange, but both Will and Anahera found this kind of thing to be quite normal. Cleaning was not something Warren enjoyed, but his two friends acted like it was the most important thing in the world. Humoring them, he said "So, what is the first room you'd like to start with?"

"The bathroom." Said both Will and his cousin in unison. Warren's bathroom was not completely grotesque, but it was bad enough to make Anahera gag, or so she said. The tiles could use some Lyme-Away, and their were some rings around the tub, but Warren didn't believe it was that bad. However, Will and Anahera were disgusted by the state of his bathroom.

It started out with disinfectants, dusting, and elbow grease, Will was obsessively talking about his need for a gas mask to avoid the stench of a bottle of Axe Warren's mother had given him one Christmas and he had 'accidentally' dropped. Anahera was requesting rope to round up what she called "…giant killer dust bunnies from planet Nim." Warren was just trying to hang on to his dignity, whilst doing whatever the other two told him to.

Finally, the sink shined, the bath sparkled, and the toilet was as spotless as a hospital room. A car air freshener that Will had produced out of one of his pockets covered up the smell of Axe, making it easier to breath. The jasmine scent also covered up the strong smell of hospital strength disinfectant that Anahera had sprayed on every surface available. It was not longer dusty, though when Warren reached out to touch his now crystal clear reflection in the mirror, Will had swatted his hand away, going off about "…smudging the glass with his greasy mitts!" It was a satisfying thing, Warren realized, to be able to drink out of your own toilet bowl, though he knew that doing this he would also be swallowing gallons of toilet cleaner.

"Now, how about we bring back the shampoo bottles then call it a day?" Asked Anahera. She had made him remove all of his possessions from the bathroom, probably to protect them from chemical poisoning.

"Sounds good to me." He said, before stepping outside the room to get his basket full of toiletries in the hall. He gave them to Anahera and asked her if their was any sort of way to sort them in a sarcastic tone. However, he only half finished his sentence before she shrieked out with laughter.

"Dog shampoo?!" She said, laughing so hard she needed to lean up against the sparkling counter top. "You use shampoo for _dogs_?" she asked, slowly catching her breath. Will had not been sent into such a tizzy, but was looking at Warren with an odd look somewhere between laughter, confusion, and pure amazement.

"Hey, it is cheaper than the regular stuff!" Warren said defensively, snatching the bottle out of Anahera's hands.

"By regular stuff," Said Will in a dry tone, "You mean shampoo for, you know, humans?" Stronghold was smirking like the Cheshire cat, and Warren felt himself blushing wildly. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Peace, but as I recall, you are in fact a human."

"And besides," Reasoned Anahera. "If it's cheaper, it is probably made cheaply, which could explain why your hair is so dull and lifeless all the time."

"My hair is not dull and lifeless!" And yet looking in the newly visible mirror, Warren saw that his hair did lack the luster of Will's and Anahera's.

"Yes it is." Said Will, with an evil grin. "And I think we should fix that, don't you?" He asked Anahera, who was now also smiling sweetly.

"Why yes, yes I do. Right now." Warren slowly backed away from the two, but they cornered him.

"No!" He shouted out, but they ambushed him, grabbing behind him and pressing him to the wall.

Anahera grabbed the showerhead and Will turned on the water. Warren focused all his energy on burning off the water but not scolding his friends. It was working, the water evaporated instantly upon contact with his skin. Seeing this problem, Anahera set out to solve it. She put one of her hands squarely on his chest and the other on the crown of his head. Will sprayed Warren on the top his head, knowing that he would not risk scalding Anahera to burn the water off. This effectively got Warren soaked, from the top of his head to his chest at least. To retaliate he reached out and tickled Anahera's bare stomach, making her scream with laughter. Will sprayed him in the face and with Warren's free hand the boys engaged in an impromptu fist fight. They weren't hurting each other, just asserting their authority, as Layla would say.

There was so much screaming and laughing and shrieking and shouting that nobody noticed Myra Peace open the door and stare disgustedly at her son.

**CLIFF HANGER! Yeah, it's awesome, ain't it? My gift to you on this beautiful Mardi Gras, now let's all go and get some Paczkis!**

**PS, I'm thinking about changing the theme where I name the chapters from lyrics in the Robbie Williams song "Angels", mainly because I am changing the plot line and therefore it does not match up with the song. I'm not sure though, you'll have to find out whenever I next put up a chapter, which will be soon, hopefully.**

**Laissez les bon temps roulez!**


	8. Tell Mother I Love Her

**Yes, it is finally done. Screw writers block, it just got its face owned!**

**Disclaimer-**

**I do not own Sky High. I do, however, own Writer's Block's face. I put it up on my mantel.**

"Warren Joash Peace!" Mira's voice bounced off of the bathroom's tiled walls, making Warren wince. His mother glared at her son and his friends with an anger in her eyes he had not thought possible.

"Mother," Warren said, his voice tense. Both syllables were forced from his mouth, as though talking to Mira was very stressful. After the initial shock and surprise of her being home, he was rather upset. What was her problem, busting in on him and his friends and reacting at their little game as though it was some sort of act of blasphemy?

"I have never been so disappointed in you in my entire life."

And with that he lost his composure and moment's anger. That was a fault of his; he could never be upset with his mother for more than a minute. Her sadness controlled him; he hated hearing her tone full of pain and suffering.

"Ms. Peace, Will and I will get going now. I am sorry if we have upset you in any way, but really, we were just helping Warren clean his house. It isn't anything to disrupt your household or anything, if that's what you're thinking… Though to be honest, even if we did, you wouldn't really be around to notice it."

Anahera's words surprised Warren. _She_ could be mad at his mother. But then again, why would she be mad? If anyone was to be mad, it was he, and he was most certainly not mad at all. Correction, he was mad. At Anahera.

"Back off, I am sure my mom has a perfectly reasonable excuse for being so disgruntled!" Had he really said that so cruelly? Warren watched Anahera's eyes get big, then slowly fill with tears before they turned into the foulest glare he had ever seen. She looked mad enough to strangle him right in that bathroom, in front of his mother and Will. Will. Warren didn't dare look at his friend, for fear of the scorn and hatred that was now surely passing across his visage. Instead he looked down at the floor patterns, pale ebony stones that were a pleasant white colour now that they had been scrubbed clean from their past dingy cream. He desperately wanted to melt into them, to disappear from this spot where so many people were mad at him. He himself was mad at him.

"Well, goodbye Warren, Ms. Peace. I suppose I will have to see you later." Will's voice lacked any sort of emotion at all, and Warren couldn't resist looking at him. He immediately regretted the decision; the look on Will's face was much worse than Anahera's something he did not think possible. It was not filled with anger, but a weak sadness. Will looked tired, weak. There stood one of his best friends in the world, looking ashamed of himself, and Warren realized, of Warren's own behavior. He wished to comfort the boy who had trusted him with everything, the boy who's trust he had just lost. However, Warren was weak. Instead, he looked at his friend with an expression of self-pity and halfhearted apology. Slowly, Will and Anahera made their way out of the house. Will's Converse and Anahera's Street Visions left no marks on the now spotless entry way; there was no dust or mud imprint or any sort of proof that they had really ever been there at all.

"Mom," he said feebly, "Why are you so upset? We were just playing around…" His voice trailed off as he stared into the back of his mother's head in the mirror. Her thick, dark curls were filled with premature streaks of gray. Warren knew his mother's job was one full of pressure and high demands, but had never really noticed how it took its toll on the woman. Or maybe he had noticed. He had just blocked it out, not letting himself pay any attention to any of his mother's flaws.

"That is not what I am upset about Warren." Her voiced clearly said that Mira had no intention of giving up the argument. She was still mad all right, but now Warren could simply not figure out why.

"Then why are you so angry" He asked. Warren couldn't think of any reason for her to be feeling this mad. He was a relatively good kid, got okay grades and didn't spend his time rotting away in detention. For God's sake, he cooked, cleaned, and did the dishes every night by himself. Most teenage boys would have been dead or completely evicted from the neighborhood, but Warren made sure he never gave his mother any trouble.

"YOU WERE ABUSING YOUR GIRLFRIEND! Buen dios, usted cerdo estúpido muchacho!" His mother screamed. Her normally pretty face was contorted with rage and hate as she looked at her only child.

Warren opened his mouth, then closed it again, before staring blankly at his mother. What was going on here?

"What in the purple mountain majesty are you talking about mother?"

"Crystal!" Warren cringed; this was not going to be good. "She comes to meet me, crying, in the middle of the night after calling my personal number and begging to talk to me about something personal. There she tells me that her boyfriend, you, has been hitting her and beating her and doing all sorts of awful, ungentlemanly things to her."

Warren felt as though he was going to explode; Crystal was the biggest liar in the entire world. "Mom," He said slowly, fighting to keep his voice calm and even. "That is a completely B.S. story. I would never hurt a woman. You raised me that way, remember?"

"Then why on earth would the poor girl come up to me complaining you did, hm?" Mira was about 3 inches shorter than him, but she stood with such a posture that made her seem much, much taller.

"I don't know, maybe because she is a psychotic bitch and I dumped her?"

"Warren! Language! You have twice used foul language in my presence, something you never do. Is this something that you have picked up from your new 'friends'? I did not like the look of either of them. Why, they look like hoodlums! _Crystal_ should be the one who is your friend!"

"Well Mother, I am sure Crystal would make a great friend if it were not for the fact that she is, as previously stated, crazy. And I know calling her names is not the answer to or the correct way to deal with my problems. However, sometimes I cannot help myself, especially when I am discussing her. By the way, where was my first swearing word? I only used such vulgar language in your presence once, Mother." His tone was patronizing; he could not help himself.

"B. S. is not something you say in front of a lady, and you should especially refrain from use if the lady is your mother!"

"B. S., though I did pick that up from a friend of mine, is not a cuss word. Besides, I am a nearly self-sufficient teenage boy, I should be aloud to curse every once in a while without you practically threatening to send me to reform school!"

"SELF-SUFFICIENT?" Warren's mother was angrier at this than she had been when she thought he was a girlfriend beating delinquent.

"Yes, self-sufficient. I am living alone, Mother. The only thing you do is send money to pay for the small amount of food I consume, which I could easily cover with my pay check from The Paper Lantern. Hell, I see your return address stamp more than I see you!" He was mad at his mother, really mad, for the first time in his life. Warren could not remember a time when he had yelled or argued with his mother as he was doing now. It was just so unthinkable for him to be doing this, almost like a dream. _Yes,_ he thought, _I am simply dreaming. I would never have the balls to say this in real life!_ Yet he knew this was a stupid, useless excuse. Warren never understood how somebody could be in such denial that they could really cause themselves to believe that they were dreaming. He'd seen many movies, TV shows, and books in which such a thing happened, but knew that in real life, it simply did not.

"You are never hanging out with those people ever again. Obviously, the friends you have now are poisoning you and your life. I know my Warren would never speak in such a way to his mother. Why, that girl is probably some sort of slut or whore, and that awful boy is probably trying to get you to do all sorts of drugs. It will all be okay Warren, for I, your loving Mother, will forgive you. Don't worry dear, we'll move out west and they will be nothing but a memory."

Warren hated her tone, she sounded crazy, absolutely out of her mind. He told her this and she promptly burst into tears. Instead of going on to say that Anahera was not a slut or a whore, and that both of those were terrible, vulgar words that his virgin ears should not be accustomed to, he sobbed with her, holding his mother as the two of them collapsed onto the bathroom floor. Warren had planned on telling her who Will was, the son of her employers, but instead held her hand so tightly that she momentarily cried out in pain, which made him let go in shame. He had been planning to tell her so much, all her faults, how sometimes he tried to kill himself when she left, how he missed his father, even though he had been a terrible man, how scary it was when he went to sleep not knowing where she was, how he missed her all the time, but instead he simply held her hand and whispered "I love you" into her dark hair, rocking back and forth on the sparkling tile.

They fell asleep, and Warren woke up alone. Funny, that was how it had been with Crystal, too. Of course, they had never done anything; they hadn't been a couple that long. However, whenever he dreamt of loving her, it always ended with her leaving him all alone at the end.

But his mother was still there, in the kitchen. She was making some sort of omelet, whistling a melancholy tune under her breath. Warren nearly jumped out of his skin as the kettle on the stovetop corner went off, the sound piercing the near silence.

"Hi, Mom." Warren said. His voice cracked, with early morning soreness painfully wrestling his vocal cords.

"Hey, bebé. How are you feeling?" She sounded like she'd been crying more, and it made Warren want to start sobbing once again himself.

"I… uh, better than I was last night." He couldn't really think of anything better to say, anything appropriate to mention after a night such as the previous one.

"I called the school and informed them that you couldn't make it today. I hope you won't be too terribly upset." Her voice had a hint of a smile in it, like maybe she still loved him after all that, something that Warren had been worried about. But then, a piece of logic occurred to him. He still loved her after everything she had done to him, so she should do the same, shouldn't she?

It took him a moment to realize he was still very angry at his mother, for what reason though? He paced and sighed and told her out flat.

"Ma, soy enojado en usted." He was mad at her. Why was that so hard for him to say? Why did he nearly crumple into tears again at the mention of any emotion towards his mother besides adoration? That, he reasoned, was not a normal thing.

"I know Warren, I know you are mad at me. You have every right to be so much more than mad at me. Hell, you probably deserve to disembowel me and torture me endlessly until the end of eternity." Her Spanish voice was beautiful; it was so much more natural sounding than her clumsy, butchered English. It took Warren a moment to really pay attention to what she had said, he was so happy to hear her voice not yelling at him any longer, happy to be with him.

Two things had occurred there. Fist off, Warren's mother had sworn in front of him, which should she was clearly rightfully over then entire language lesson she had given him the night prior. Secondly, she had said it was okay for him to be mad at her. For some reason, this made him breath easier. Warren realized it was not healthy to have to be granted permission to be angry, but knew this was miles ahead of where he had been before.

"But Mama, I do not wish to be angry with you. I, I love you. I really don't care that you travel, as long as you come home. It's okay, you don't have to abandon your career and stay home with me or anything, I just, I just want to maybe see you more often. You could maybe call me or something, just once a week or something, just so I know you aren't dead in some Central American country." Warren looked up at his mother, and saw she had tears in her almond coloured eyes. It made him want to kill himself. Why did he always make her cry? He didn't try to; maybe he was just a terrible failure of a son. Warren would probably cry too if he was his mother.

"I'm sorry Mama, it's okay."

"Damn it Warren, I want to quit my job. I want to be here for you, not off in some unimportant goddamn wasteland research center. I want to see you grow up, know all your friends and girlfriends, and I fight with you more often. I want us to be screaming our lungs off at each other saying we hate each other. Because even that is better than pretending that everything is all right in both of our lives when it's obviously not. I am tired of not really knowing anything about you because I am to freaking wrapped up in my own life. Which is quite a paradox, seeing as you _are_ my life. What I'm saying here is, Warren I am sorry. You shouldn't be sorry at all, you should be hating me more than anyone else on this earth. I would still love you if you did, you know? But damn it, you don't hate me at all. It amazes me that someone could love as much as you do Warren. You're just… you're amazing Warren, you know that?"

Warren loved her, he loved her more than anything, but he also knew that he didn't need to tell her so.

After spending two days with his mother, the longest they had spent together in 12 years, his mother kissed him goodbye and left to go back to work. Warren wasn't bitter at all, they both knew the day was coming, and he was surprised that it had been held off for so long. She really had seriously considered leaving her job, but that would mean she would have to find another one, and with no traceable college or high school degree, that could be difficult. Mira asked Warren to make the decision in the end, and he had told her to go, to make the world a better place for both of them. It was cheesy, but it was what she did, what she had always done every since Warren was young. Most kids called there parents "Super Mom" or "Super Dad" but Warren had the pleasure of actually having supers for parents. It hadn't been real swell so far, but there were benefits, such as always knowing the only reason his mother was still a superhero after the Battle fiasco was because she wanted Warren to have a positive role model, and for him to live in a safe world.

Warren hummed a tune as he went to take out the trash, it was Sunday and the cool air surrounding him reminded him self to burn the recyclables. The paper had been stacked against his dining table, slightly obscuring his view when he was sitting there. Sighing to himself, he figured he could and should do it later, because he had quite an important mission in front of him.

Climbing on his old Schwinn, he made his way down the street, past the shabby but welcoming houses and into the more well to do areas of Maxville. Finally, he passed out of the suburbs completely. Now there were only charming farm villas and will forests for miles. The sun started to peer through the clouds for a while, and a rainbow appeared in the sky above. It was a rather picturesque setting, and Warren knew that he would soon miss the serenity of it, for he was not going to be in a very peaceful position all too soon. When he finally reached his destination, a slightly small, rundown colonial on Alma Street, he took a deep breath.

Setting his bike gingerly on the dirt driveway, Warren stepped lightly toward the front door. The concrete porch was nothing like his own, sturdy and hard. However, the intricate chalk drawings made him smile and think of home. It also painfully reminded him of Mira. Just because he was now okay with her constant traveling did not mean that he was happy with it. Still, he knew it was so much easier this way.

Urging his thoughts back to the task at hand, he knocked on the door. He tapped softly at first, but after going unanswered for a minute he hit the door a little harder, and in quicker succession.

Finally, Stewart Stronghold answered. He had giant headphones around his neck and Warren could immediately tell he'd been 'jamming', or playing guitar down in his sound proof basement.

"Warren! Surprised you'd have the nerve to show your face round here!"

Warren was slightly taken aback by this comment. He should have expected something along this nature, though it was still surprising to see that Stewart had been so brash. Warren thought that the man liked him, though he supposed that Mr. Stronghold would be upset with anyone who made his little girl unhappy.

"I'm sorry, and I came to apologize. I was a jerk, my mom was sort of a jerk, and the entire afternoon had just been so anti-jerk that when the two collided it sort of blew up. I really am very sorry, and have come here to beg for her forgiveness."

Stewart appeared outraged at this. "You think you can just jerk her around? No matter how old she acts, you need to realize she's just a little kid. She can't handle someone continually crushing her heart.

Warren's eyebrows raised; he was crushing her heart? "What are you talking about, Stewart?"

"Don't call me Stewart, boy. You know exactly what I am talking about. Asking my little girl to prom and then fooling around with some other girl! You should be ashamed, you low life cretin.

"What?" It would have been almost comical, had he not been repressing the urge to kill Lash and being punished for the fool's actions. "I'm not dating Anahera, never have been, and we were never planning to go to prom. She was going with someone completely different, as in: Not me!" Warren was actually quite upset at this. Was he really so close to Anahera that people could mistake them for a couple? For a moment he pictured them, together, but quickly pushed the thought from his head. Lash was Anahera's love; Anahera was Lash's love (Though this was something that had obviously been tested quite recently.) They were sort of inseparable, and whenever he saw the two of them together they were grinning and laughing and looking at each other with such admiration. However, he could not escape the wanting to be the one who got to hold Anahera's hand and talk to her endlessly on the phone. Warren shook his head; he knew it would not work.

"So, you didn't break my daughters heart?" Stewart asked, looking rather confused. Warren didn't blame the poor man; teenage drama was rather bewildering.

"Nope, not that I know of. I mean, she's probably really upset with me, but for a completely different reason. Ha, I pity the man that messes with Anahera's heart."

"Oh, well, she's just upstairs in her room. Sorry about that…" And with that Stewart walked down the hall, muttering to himself and shaking his head.

Warren walked up the rickety stairs to the upper floor of Anahera's home. It led to a small hallway with five doors, all of which were shut. Never having been in Anahera's room, Warren was unsure which was hers. He didn't want to invade on anybody's privacy, or appear to be snooping around on there personal property.

"Warren?" Anahera's voice was sad. She stepped out from one of the doors on the right, which Warren then saw to be a bathroom. She looked as though she had just been in the shower, her hair was dripping and wet and she was only wearing a light blue towel. Warren instantly averted his eyes from the extremely short hem of her ensemble.

"I just came to say I'm sorry. You haven't talked to me in two days and it has been causing me so much hell, and I am just so sorry about everything. God, I've been saying that a lot lately…"

"Oh, Warren!" Anahera said, and she ran over to hug him. Her towel nearly dropped and Warren had a sharp intake of breath as he felt her bare thighs through the holes in his jeans.

"Okay, that's one way to accept an apology." Warren was breathing deep to keep everything under control and he carefully removed her from her close position.

"I'm sorry, I've missed you so much and Lash… Lash!" She cried, her eyes filling with tears through a glare of pure hatred. "You'll never guess what that scum bag did! He was at a party and he effing kissed another girl!"

The burn hole in Anahera's bathroom wall wasn't fixed for months after.

**So I finally finished, yay! For the record, Warren's conversations with his mom are in Spanish. Yes. They are. I promise you. I just suck at Spanish/ life, and therefore couldn't translate any of it. Anyways, anyone who can spot the exetremely important, seemingly random bit of information will be handsomely rewarded. I'll give you a hint, it refers back to the 2****nd**** official chapter, or third on the list. It's going to be super important in the next story, so if you can spot it you'll be handsomely rewarded. **

**In other news, this probably shouldn't be so long. However, as some of you may have noticed, this chapter did not in fact have a lyrics for "Angels" by Robbie Williams for the title. My reason for doing this is plot reforms, what can I say? Also, I ended with another cliffhanger. I'm sort of addicted.**

**Peace and Hair Grease!**


	9. And it All Came Crashing Down

**Disclaimer- I don't own Sky High, not even the movie (I'm rather pitiful, aren't I?)**

Warren Peace was in a foul mood. And when somebody such as Warren Peace is in such a foul, foul mood, people might get hurt. This was a lesson that Lash was painfully about to learn the hard way.

His tall figure was daunting above the masses; nobody could miss his brooding form. He could separate an entire crowd just by walking in their general direction. Well, he could do that anyways, but today was different. Today the rage inside him showed as he stalked through the halls of Sky High.

Both Anahera and Will had been out do to mysterious "medical reasons" for the past three days, so what was left of the gang decided that Ethan was the next best person to calm him down. Or rather, Layla had threatened to hang him from the rafters with poisonous vines if he didn't at least attempt to console his best friend.

He decided to do it at lunch, where Warren had chosen to sit all alone, simply plopping down on the floor next to one of the school's over-priced vending machines. Warren glared at the boy, but did not move away.

"Warren, what's wrong? I know you usually get bummed when Anahera is sick, but you're scaring people. What's up, we can talk about it."

"You," Said Warren in his deepest, most scary voice. "You want to know what's _up_?" He asked in a venomous tone. Ethan had never felt as though his friend was dangerous, but he was very worried. Warren often got very mad as opposed to being sad, and if this terrifying fury was any indication, Warren was very depressed.

"I'll tell you what's up," Said Warren, his tone growing louder with each syllable. "You know where I was Sunday? I was at Anahera's house. And you know what, she was there, scantily clothed, sobbing into me. And that was the moment I realized that I am so into this woman that I can barely contain it!" Warren was breathing deep and almost shouting, though he could not be heard over the roar of the cafeteria. Ethan saw Layla glancing their way, anxiously biting her lip.

"But you want to know why she was sobbing? BECAUSE SHE'S IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T LOVE HER! Can anyone else see the irony here? God, please, please, please, can't I get what I want, if just this time? Why is it never I? You know why I hate my father, Ethan? Not because he tried to burn down the city, not because he was tyrannical or destructive. It's because when he was around my mother, I wasn't. I would talk to her and talk to her about it, and she just wouldn't get it. She was so freaking distracted by his façade that she couldn't bring himself to see the kind of man that he really was. And now it's happening with Anahera, as well! She's so in love with Lash she can't bring herself to even think that he isn't an angel from heaven. He was kissing another girl, damn it, and she still thinks the sun shines out his ass!"

At this point, Lash walked into the cafeteria with a dangerous glint in his eye. "Okay Peace, let's see if we can count the reasons you are a complete dumb ass, shall we?"

Warren stood and took a step forward. Ethan immediately leapt up and tried to restrain him, but was pushed to the side by his more powerful friend.

"Oh, really? Because if you are willing to disagree with any statement I've made, you're obviously stupid, crazy, or both."

"Okay Warren, have it your way. But let us focus less on your incoherent ramblings and more on the facts you seemed to have conveniently ignored."

Warren was smoking through his jacket and looking murderous. His breath was heavy and ragged. "Go ahead, just give me more reasons to convict you."

Lash smiled at Warren, "Okay, fine. First off, I do love Anahera. I love her more than anything else in the entire world. I would freaking die for her. Do you here that, Peace? No one is, has been, or will ever be more important to me than her. Ever."

Warren snorted but stayed silent. He rolled his eyes at Lash when the other boy sent him a smirk, before taking a deep breath and continuing.

"Secondly, I believe that just last year you were granted a life. Friends. Friends that aren't my girlfriend. I seem to think that should be enough. Thirdly, I present no façade; Anahera knows everything about me. I'm trying to live up to her expectations, not lower them to meet my once pitiful state."

"That was an impressive performance, Lash. However, you forgot one thing. Ahem," Warren cleared his throat in an obnoxious manor. "Fourthly, you were still kissing some skank at a party. Explain your way out of that."

"I…" and that's when Lash crashed to the floor.

Warren was disgusted with himself. He hated Lash, yet here he was in the hospital waiting room, sitting for two hours while Lash was in the emergency room. The boy had passed out in the middle of the lunchroom, and then promptly cracked his head on the tile flooring. It was a very convenient time to do so, though Warren highly doubted that even Lash would go to such means to escape an awkward situation.

A nurse entered the room, and called for the party of Leonardo Smith-Hopkins. Almost immediately Medulla, who had been the one to drive Lash to the hospital, stood up to follow her. It took a moment for Warren to realize that this Leonardo person was in fact, Lash. He had never really thought of him as anything different, and never even thought about him having a last name.

The nurse led them down a clean, white hallway. The fluorescent lights hurt Warren's head, and a headache was the last thing he needed at the moment. Actually, he didn't like this hospital one bit, or any other for that matter. They reminded him too much of prison, and the smell of chemicals made him think of the burning fires that had at one time surrounded his house, and all others in the tri-state area.

Lash was awake, but extremely groggy. According to his health records, he had consumed large amounts of alcohol in the past week, and he was severely hung over. He was suffering from acute pancreatitis, was no longer allowed to consume any alcoholic beverages, lest he once again fall ill, and had been charged with underage drinking.

"How are you, you son of a bitch?" Warren was surprised at the words that came out of his own mouth; though he felt that this was an appropriate greeting to someone his feelings were conflicted over.

The boy paid no attention to Warren's language, save for a quick smirk that played across his face. "So, I suppose the doctors told you my sob story. Lash grows up in broken home, takes up alcoholism, then gets trashed and makes out with a chick that looks like his girlfriend at a party. I'm pretty god damn pathetic, aren't I?"

"Yeah actually. I'm not really sure why I'm here."

"Well, I know why I am. But anyways, I'm, um, sorry about the thing in the cafeteria. I could barely see straight, and I know I'm a douche and that Anahera definitely deserves you, seeing as you're the better man by a long shot. So, yeah, I apologize."

"Well, you are right about me being the better man, in more ways than one," Warren grinned, and Lash laughed and rolled his eyes. "But, Anahera is the one that gets to choose, and I guess that if she chooses you, I just have to live with it."

"Thanks, Man." Lash's reply was followed by an excruciating silence.

"So… when are you getting out of this place?"

"They say they're going to release me tomorrow morning, mostly because they've pretty much given up calling my parents. Then I have to come here for AA meetings every week, which should be loads of fun."

"Wow, that sucks."

"Damn, tell me about it."

The silence that followed this time was less awkward and more peaceful, and Warren sighed before looking at Lash once again.

"So, have you talked to Anahera? Told her about what happened?"

"Yeah, I left her a message telling her what happened, all of it. I hope she doesn't realize what a mistake she's made."

"She won't, she's plenty book smart, but not that wise in the real world."

"So you still think I'm a snake?"

Warren turned away, he had been asking himself this question as well. What did he think of Lash?

"Yeah, maybe just a little bit. A non-venomous one that might make a great pet someday."

"Gee, thanks."

Warren didn't particularly find the need to want to return to school, so he politely declined Medulla's offer for a ride back. Instead, he walked through the streets of Maxville blindly. They were having an Indian summer; the sun beat down on his faux leather and black clothing as though he was under a magnifying glass. He didn't mind it, though. There were bonuses to being pyrokinetic, though that was not the reason he shrugged off the heat. It was because his mind was totally away from everything. Instead, it was focused on all the times in his life where he'd wished he could die. This was probably one of the most tempting moments there had ever been. He didn't want to go back and face the school, didn't even want to think about Lash and Anahera, happily together. She had called him back whilst Warren was with Lash, and he had heard their emotional apologizing. Or rather, Lash had delivered several very passionate apologies, while Anahera had finally commented that she loved him more than anything in the world, but if he ever pulled a stunt like that again, she would kick his ass all the way to China. Warren desperately wished that it were he whom she was telling this to, he who got her praise and her wrath. He would love all of it, and yet he knew it was not his to get.

Following his feet finally led him to the Bardi Clinic. He felt as though he was experiencing everything from outside his body. The entire thing felt like dream-like and surreal. Warren follow the nurse down another brightly lit hallway, similar to the one he'd gone down to get to Lash only hours earlier. He found that he still hated it, and that this was even worse than the last. Finally, they took him to Anahera's room. It was obvious that this was where she stayed on a regular occurrence; it was decorated with her favourite flowers and had her art pinned on the walls.

"Warren?" she croaked, looking weak and pitiful. But her eyes had shown wild with anger. "You shouldn't be here, you should be at school! Out! Go back to where you should be, don't fail on my account!"

He said nothing, merely stepped into her room to take it into perspective. It was small, but not to bad. The hospital obviously knew of her claustrophobia, as mirrors had been placed all around to make the room appear larger. However, to Warren the most frightening thing in the room was Anahera herself. She looked near dead, hooked up to various wires and machines. Her body looked defeated, and her shallow breathing showed that though she was still alert, she was tired.

"Warren?" This came from Will, who was sitting in a chair by his cousin's bed. He too looked sick, his dark brown eyes were red and bloodshot, and under them bags of dark purple showed that he as well was close to exhaustion.

"Leave." He said to the boy, his tone neither hostile nor welcoming.

"Excuse me?" Will answered, confused by his best friend's behavior.

"Leave, Will. You're tired; I can look after Anahera if you want. I've got to talk to her anyways."

"Warren, I-"

"Go home, Stronghold. Get some sleep or something, I don't know. I'll stay with her. I can handle it."

"Thanks for the offer, Warren, but I really don't think I should-"

"Go! Just leave, all right? It's no use getting both of you sick, is it? Now go, I need to speak with Anahera in private."

Will simply looked at Warren helplessly, before shrugging at Anahera and leaving the room.

Anahera had remained oddly quiet this entire time. Now, she looked up at Warren with her big eyes wide. "So," She began, struggling for breath and speech. "You wanted to talk to me, did you?"

With that, Warren rushed over to her, pulling her into a fierce, rib-crushing hug. She was at first a tad taken aback, but hugged him back with what little energy she had.

"I'm sorry." He whispered into her dark brown curls.

"For what?" Anahera asked, though her rough breathing and quiet voice indicated that she was very close to giving into her extreme fatigue.

"Coveting after what I can't have." He said, once again into her sweet smelling hair. But Anahera didn't hear him, for sleep had claimed her and she was dead to the world.

Warren wasn't sure how long it was that he lied next to her, listening to the steady rhythm of her heartbeat, before he too fell asleep. However, he awoke the next morning surprised and confused. Surprised that he had slept for so long, and confused that he was no longer with Anahera. Instead, he had been laid between two chairs in her room; it was a miracle he'd slept through such heavy lifting.

Anahera wasn't there, either. Upon realizing this, he raced to the help desk and asked for her location. The secretary behind the desk, a cheerful young woman with a blond perm and long brown roots informed him that she was simply at her daily check up, and that he could wait in her room, for it was almost over.

He did, and when she returned she looked much healthier than she had the previous afternoon. She smiled brightly at him, and they talked about what she had missed during her absence. After words, they had moved onto several more topics, including what was happening to her. Apparently she was improving greatly from where she had been, but every so often she relapsed. She sounded not at all worried about this, but Warren could see it in her eyes that she was deathly scared.

They talked for hours, and suddenly one day turned into four. On Monday morning, just before she went in for her daily check up, Warren realized that he had not yet told Anahera that which he should have a long time ago. That he was irreversibly and unexplainably in love with her.

And suddenly, he realized that it did not much matter any more, at least for the time they spent together. Warren knew he could not keep his secret forever, but figured he could at least take his time explaining to her his feelings.

By Saturday morning she had grown agitated with his presence, and she'd been telling him so. Today, when she returned from her appointment, she had practically begged him to return to school. Anahera told him that she was no reason for him to miss class, and that she could handle a couple days alone. Warren hated seeing her like this, completely at his mercy, yet the feeling that came with it was strangely invigorating. He thought about agreeing only to leave if she gave him a kiss, but almost immediately shot that idea down. It was childish and cruel to force her into something she most likely did not want to do.

At the same time, he wanted to be nearby her at all times. Lash had called a couple times, and he had greedily taken advantage of his perfect position to ease drop on their conversations, and made no secret to hide his disgust whenever she told her boyfriend she loved him before hanging up the phone.

"Why do you still trust him?" Warren had asked one particular time.

Anahera said nothing at first, but then smiled widely and simply said, "I don't know. Maybe because he tried to drink himself into oblivion at the thought of hurting me, or maybe it's just because my gut tells me he's being honest. I don't know, Warren, it's just something about him."

This disgusted Warren, but at least he could see her point of view.

On Tuesday afternoon, Anahera finally snapped. She insisted he leave and get back to school, then promptly called Will up and invited him. When questioned about this, Anahera simply shrugged and pointed out that it looked better to fail a predicted super villain than the son of two of the city's most influential supers. Warren agreed, though not without giving both Will and Anahera several reasons why staying at the hospital was way more important to him than any school grade. They subsequently threatened to get secure to take him out, though all in good fun. Warren finally left, though felt terrible about doing so. He knew that the hospital was where he needed to be.

After getting back to school, Warren found that almost the entire student body was abuzz; rumors about what had happened were flying faster than Will. He quickly found Ethan, Layla, Magenta, and Zach, and told them the real story.

"So you're just going to let Lash off?" asked Zach in disbelief. They had decided to all skip their 7th period gym. The class had been a mockery ever since Boomer left, with no order or respect for the substitutes, who were teachers with 7th hour free periods. So, instead of lazing about the loud, sweaty gym, they opted to hang out on the front lawn, under a conveniently placed oak tree that completely hid them from view of those who might have been looking out of the windows.

"Yeah, I mean, what else am I going to do?" said Warren. He was lying on the ground, face up, eyes closed. His breathing was deep; he sounded almost if he was sleeping.

"Well, Mr. Ferocious, you could just beat the crap out of him and finally win yourself a girlfriend who isn't psychotic." This came from Magenta, who did not enjoy sitting in the warm autumn sun as much as the others, and was therefore extremely irritable and cranky. She was starting to sweat through her fishnets, and they took forever to wash. Why couldn't they chill out somewhere dark and cool?

"That's not going to solve anything, Mag." Warren sighed deeply at the prospect of going head to head with Lash. In his opponent's current state, he would no doubt win, but it would not be worth much.

"What do you mean it's not going to solve anything? Are you like, freaking retarded? Do I have to spell it out for you? If you own Anahera's boyfriend, there's no one standing in your way to her heart."

Warren laughed at this notion; Magenta and Anahera were really nothing at all alike. "Magenta, if I beat up Lash, it will not assure me some magical place in Anahera's heart. Rather, it will probably cause her to lose all of her trust in me, and I will then not be any closer to her love, nor have her respect. I would loose one of the best things in my life, and I can't bare to think what I would do without her."

Suddenly, he sat up, pulling his legs up and folding one of his arms around his knees. The other hand ran through his hair; it was as though it was attempting to follow his racing thoughts.

"But God, it's not like I'll have her for long." Warren sighed again, and collapsed back to his original position.

"What do you mean, Warren?" Ethan asked. Layla frowned.

"Don't say that Warren, I'm sure she's getting better."

"Oh." Came from all other members of their small group. They had slowly found out about Anahera's delicate state, and her probable death. Her cancerous conditions, the illnesses that were progress as her leukemia racked her body of its health.

Warren's chest was heaving, though he tried to once again sit up. "I'm, I'm just so, so scared for her. And for me too, which is selfish and stupid. It is not like I'm the one that could die. But I am so, so scared of having to face life without her. Because even though I've only known her for a little while, it feels like she's this huge piece of my life. And it's stupid; the only one that should be scared is she. She has so much life to live, and she might not get to experience everything she wanted to. And I know that's what's killing her, on the inside at least. I know she says she's accepted it, but you know that she must feel absolutely freaking terrified some days. And I, I just want to help her, to make all that fear and pain and frustration go away. I want her to be free."

And with that, Warren's head fell as his body shook with his sobs. Everyone moved a little closer to him, even Magenta. They patted him on the back until at last his cries subsided, and he rose up.

"I have to go see her, to tell her everything I have to before she's gone."

And with that, Warren took a running jump off the edge of the school.

**Dun, dun, DUN!!! Oh, what's going to happen next? Well, I don't really know. I've got an idea though, and I'm going to run with it! Anyways, happy Easter to those who celebrate it, hopefully the rabbit gave you a good haul. So, in conclusion, I'm probably going to start typing the next chapter tomorrow, and hope to get back to my chapter a day thing, at least for this week. I was going to hold out for a certain number of reviews, but sadly I realized that I'm not **_**that**_** popular, ;-)**

**Happy Spring, everyone!**


	10. The Hospital Hours

**Well, here it is, several days late. But in my defense, I went to Borders on Wednesday, and Eoin Colfer has been controlling my life ever since.**

**Disclaimer- I do not own Sky High, however, I am now the proud owner of **_**Artemis Fowl, The Time Paradox**_**.**

"Is he up yet?"

"Will he be okay?"

"I'm not sure, Mr. Peace took quite a fall."

"Oh, God, this is because of me isn't it?"

"My baby, my poor, poor baby!"

"Jesus, we should have tried to stop him!"

"Layla, calm down, what could you have done?"

"I don't know; something, anything!"

"Damn that bastard! Making me worry about him is cruel and unusual punishment!"

"Oh, shut it Mag. We all know that deep down you really care about Warren."

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

As Magenta broke out into muffled sobs, Warren became aware of his surroundings for the first time. He couldn't see, but he could feel himself, barely breathing, lying on some soft, though albeit a tad stiff, bed sheets. He distinctly smelled powerful cleaning supplies; it made him want to vomit. However, try as he might, he could not open his eyes. His fist clenched the sheets under him, as some sort of sign that he was all right. Unfortunately, his body was covered in blankets up to his chin, thick, woolly things that made him feel warm and safe and as though he had just gotten a bad case of the flu, not jumped off of a floating school.

Finally, he gathered enough strength to clench his teeth and let out a low, torturous, barely audible breath. Despite the quietness of his great effort, he immediately felt everyone in the room rush up to his face.

"I…" The word was quiet and forced, and the minimal effort it took to produce left him exhausted.

"Oh, Warren!" He felt his mother more than actually hearing her. Her mint scented breath, blowing coolly across his face, which he realized for the first time, was burning. He could smell the fruity perfume she wore on special occasions, and wondered desperately what important event he had pulled her away from. She needed to leave, needed to go where she was needed. He would manage without her; he always did.

It then struck him that this was extremely similar to Anahera's argument, and with this realization, he pulled himself closer to the sound of her voice. Mira hugged him closely to what must have been her bosom, and though this was a slightly, awkward, uncomfortable position, he found it reassuring to feel the beat of her heart.

"Warren?" Came Anahera's gentle voice. He couldn't see her face, but from the tone of her voice, timid and scared and weak, she knew she was very worried, and very upset. She hugged him fiercely, as he had done to her just a few days earlier. She sobbed, choking for air, and Warren desperately wished he could lift up his arms to hold her.

And suddenly everyone was crowding around him, their cries filling the room, each hugging him tighter than the last. It was a lovely feeling, Warren thought, to be wanted and loved by people he cared so much about. And yet, he could not enjoy this when he saw, or rather in his case felt, what it was doing to his friends and family.

He lay there for hours, listening to them talking to him. It seemed that he had gone delirious, partially from the build up of him not using his powers, though his psychological state had not helped at all. He couldn't really remember standing up, or jumping off the edge of the building. All Warren remembered about that moment was that he felt like he was flying, like everything was right with the world. If he thought about it a lot, he could all most taste the humid, cloudy air, and hear the wind whistling through his ears. It had been one of the most amazing moments of his life, where everyone and everything was fine and nothing could hurt him.

Until he hit the ground, that is.

Then, the government had to call in dozens of people to remove the memory of a boy falling from space inside of a fiery inferno, because this was the kind of thing you simply did not want in the newspapers. Warren mentally chuckled at the thought of _that_ headline.

After clearing up the mess he had made, special paramedic had transported him to the Bardi Clinic. It was quite ironic, as Anahera was just checking out at the moment he bust through door, unconsciously being rolled around at top speed on a gurney. She had cried and ran after him, before being stopped by Will and some other doctors.

He had busted 6 ribs, broke both arms, severely injured his neck, (An act which almost snapped his spinal cord, thankfully people with super powers are a bit harder to break.) and cracked his head completely open. Apparently, his survival was a miracle, even for a super, seeing as Warren had landed head first into solid cement pavement, on fire. However, most of the doctors at Bardi felt it was the fire that saved him, as technically, that touched the ground first. Their theory was that Warren was semi slowed down in flight by it, and the force of the flame against ground had softened the blow. Like an air bag in a car accident, his mother explained. Magenta then pointed out that most car accidents happened in cars, where the driver was not falling from the sky or incased in an inferno.

"But," Zach said in response to his girlfriend's remark, "Warren isn't much for doing things the old fashion way."

Warren learned the reason he couldn't open his eyes was because they were slightly damaged, and the doctors had somehow sedated them with some new fangled technology, as Anahera put it.

"Well, Peace, I have always wondered what you would look like in glasses." Said a cool voice that could belong to no one other than Lash. "Next time, though, I would prefer if you didn't jump of a building to find out. That's a bit extreme, don't you think?"

Warren, using all of his strength, reached up to try and punch Lash in the face. The result was pure agony; he missed and hit a metal bedpost. His cast made a resounding thud on the cool, harsh metal, and his arm fell lamely to the ground. Adding this to the fact that he was weak and sore beyond believe, he decided that maybe he should just remain sedentary for the time, until he could wiggle his toes without feeling completely spent.

The reason for this, said Will, was that "…jumping off of a building is hard work, you know." This comment had Warren laughing, which he found to be a huge mistake. His abdomen felt as though it was being ripped off of him, and it was as though his broken ribs were crushing him.

He let out a shout, and Layla to gasp and yell playfully, "Warren! Don't surprise me like that!"

"Well Layla, how would you like us to surprise you?" Came Lash's speedy comeback, which had Anahera tittering and Zach let out a hearty laugh. Warren heard Will exhale, and knew that his friend was smiling.

It was odd to think of Lash as part of the group, but he had slowly come to fit in with the others. He was no longer regarded as a merciless bully by the rest of the population, and even Magenta had nice things to say about him, occasionally.

"Well Warren, thanks for letting us get out of seventh hour early. We'll be back tomorrow, with hookers and beer!" As Ethan said this, Zack let out a whoop and Anahera burst into a full-blown laugh attack. Even Layla was giggling like mad, and her infectious ha's soon caused Will and Magenta to follow suit.

After getting awkward, one armed hugs from everyone, the room emptied out pretty quickly. Nobody was left except him and his mother, who moved closer to him, and squeezed herself onto the mattress next to him. They were both facing the ceiling, and Warren tried to get himself to breath in the same pattern as her. She laughed when she noticed him doing this, and held her breath.

"Gosh darn it, Ma!" He said jokingly, and she laughed and kissed him on the forehead.

"Well, today was nice actually. I got to meet your friends for the first time, and how long has it been since we've spent more than 4 hours together?"

"Not since Christmas." He muttered. He'd gained the ability to talk a couple of hours ago, and now the soreness was fading away as well. However, the fatigue remained, now heightened after being awake for several hours.

"God, I wish every day was like this." His mother said. "Well, not like this. I mean, I don't fancy you'd enjoy jumping off of buildings every day, and I wouldn't have it." She sat up, moving her back against the headboard and patting his hair. "Warren, you know what temperature you were running when they first found you?"

"What?" Warren said sleepily, he knew he wouldn't stay conscious for much longer, but wanted to cherish his time with Mira.

"53 degrees, Warren." He heard the rustling of her hair as she shook her head.

"Well, Ma," He said, trying to reason with his worrying mother. "I've always ran a higher temperature than every one else, and besides, I had just been on fire."

"That's 12 degrees higher than usual for you Warren, not even bringing normal people into this. And the highest you've ever gotten while on fire was _maybe_ 48 degrees. That's about five degrees, Mister!"

"So, what's five measly degrees going to do, Ma?"

"Five _measly_ degrees? What if everywhere on Earth raised five degrees, Warren? Ice would melt, cities would flood, people would die- it would be mass hysteria!"

"All right, all right, I got it. So I got over heated, what's the point of this anyways?"

"I'm quitting my job, Warren."

"Ma, that's crazy. This is no big deal."

"Warren, listen to yourself! I am quitting my job, no ifs ands or buts. In fact, I have already mailed in my resignation letter in. Actually, I'm going to have a mock retirement party. You can invite your friends if you would like. There will be cake!"

Warren sighed, why did his mother insist on foolishly threatening to destroy her income every time he got a little banged up? He could manage.

He then realized how profoundly ridiculous this sounded.

Who was he kidding? He was lying on a hospital bed, in one of the worst conditions he'd ever been in. Why did he insist on constantly pushing his mother away? After all, she was only trying to help.

"Fine, I give you my permission to quit your job, but I'm taking a second one."

Mira snorted. "Ah, my little Warren, it seems as though I have been away for so long that you've forgotten how this Mother-Son thing works. I make the rules, and I give out and take away permission. And you do not have my permission to take a second job. And that's final."

Warren had to laugh at the irony of this situation. "Ma, now that I think about it, you're right. Besides, it will already be a full time career teaching you what life is like away from government powers and super people. Because the way it stands, _I_ would probably have a better chance getting a job than you."

Kissing her son on the forehead, Mira laughed in a good-natured way.

"Warren?" She asked after a couple minutes of silence. He had almost drifted off, but her voice pulled him back to his sleepy existence in the world of semiconscious.

"Yeah, Ma?" He asked, stifling a powerful yawn.

"Well, one more thing about your surgery."

"What is it?" Warren asked, a bit more alert this time. Was their some other side affect of his injury, and what was it? And why had Mira waited until now to tell him this?

"You know how you were told about your head splitting in two?"

"That's what I was told, yeah."

"Well, to stitch it up… Oh, Warren…"

"Was is it, Ma?"

"Well, they sort of had to shave you."

"Jesus Christ." And then with one last sigh of disbelief, he faded off into the dark oblivion of his sleep-starved mind.

Warren was awoken the next morning by a strange creature flying onto his bed, and then tackling him. It took him for a few moments to realize that this creature was Anahera, and he had regained his sense of sight. She was carrying a large bag; he could only imagine what was in it. Lash was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed and smirking at Warren's look of surprise.

"Mornin'" He said simply. In his left hand he gripped a coffee, something that was quite hard to do with crossed arms. Warren immediately recognized his shirt- he had one like it himself. It was black with the words "DAMM: Drunks Against Mad Mothers" written across the chest in red ink.

"Good to know they're really getting through to you in AA, Lash."

This only caused Lash's smirk to grow wider. "Actually, I got this thing from one of my new friends there. His name is Axe, and he has been arrested 7 times for alcohol related crimes and once for grand theft auto."

"Hm, that's not to bad. Knowing you, I expected some sort of heroin dealer. But seven isn't that bad, not at all…"

"He's fifteen."

"Oh. Well then."

Lash smiled at moved over to sit on Warren's bed, next to Anahera. Warren felt a pinge of jealousy in his stomach, but decided that he should just ignore it all and be happy for his two friends and their relationship.

"So," He said, suddenly sullen as the memories of he and his mother's talk the previous night flooded back to him. "How bad does it look?"

"How bad does what look, Warren?" Anahera asked innocently. Warren heaved a sigh. If Anahera was playing this dumb, it must look pretty bad.

"You know. My hair. In case you haven't noticed."

Anahera sighed, and Lash stood up to get a better look at the bald streak on Warren's skull. "It doesn't look that bad." He said simply.

Warren searched around for a mirror, before Anahera tossed him a hand mirror sitting on a windowsill.

The image was life scarring.

"Doesn't look that bad?" He roared, unable to believe it. "Lash, I've got a freaking reverse Mohawk! And you are trying to tell me it doesn't look that bad? It looks plenty bad in my opinion, thanks!" The bald spot was about three inches across down the center of his head, and stopped at about the level of his ears. Warren moaned, going back to school was going to be great fun with this hairstyle.

"Well, I can fix it. By the time I'm done with you, you'll look better than you ever have in your sad, ugly, little life!" Said Lash cheerfully. He then set his coffee down on Warren's bedside table and produced a brush, some scissors, and a bottle of some sort of styling product from the contents of the large bag Anahera had brought in. Warren recoiled into his bed.

"What? No! I am not going to trust my hair, and more importantly, my head to you! God only knows what you could do to me!"

Lash merely chuckled, "Warren, my dear boy, I work at a beautician's salon. I not only know what I intend to do to you, I know how to do it as well. It will be fine. And besides, Anahera will be watching over you, and she won't let anything happen to you." Anahera nodded earnestly, and then looked at him pleadingly.

"Please Warren, just trust him, okay? I've seen him cut people's hair before; he's a total pro. It will be awesome, I promise."

"Fine, fine, fine." Warren grumped, though he didn't like this business one bit.

"All right, let's get set up then!" Said Lash, and he and Anahera got to work unloading the contents of the bag, which turned out to be a large mirror and several more beauty tools. Warren was beginning to get very uneasy; perhaps he had gotten into something over his head. But before he could protest, he was being moved to a chair, and having his head leaned back into a large bowl Anahera had filled with water. Lash began rhymically washing his hair, which was a tad more than slightly uncomfortable.

"So…" Began Anahera, trying to break the uneasy silence that had settled in the room.

Suddenly, Lash stopped washing. "God, I feel so freaking gay right now." And with that all three of them laughed, though Warren found that this was not a good idea when one's head is tilted back at an unnatural angle.

"Well, you do sort of fit the part." He said casually.

"Oh really, Mr. Peace?" Said Lash while rinsing off what was left of Warren's hair with a pitcher.

"You know Lash, he has sort of got a point." Said Anahera. Lash cocked an eyebrow in her direction. "Well, you take home economics, work at West Beauty Salon, dress impeccably, and your favourite show on television is GREEK."

Warren snorted at this, as Lash turned bright red. "Anahera!" He said, embarrassed, but not upset at her. "Now, I don't go tell people you have a huge crush on that Danny Masterson from that hippie show!"

When he heard this, Warren could not believe his ears. "You like _Hyde_?" He asked, amazed, as Anahera blushed a fierce shade of fuchsia.

"I… I…" She stuttered, though smiling.

"That's okay, Anahera." Said Lash seriously. "Hyde _is_ the best looking one." Almost as soon as he realized what he had said, both Warren and Anahera burst out into peals of laughter.

Soon their laughter died down, and Lash went about snipping and drying and styling Warren's hair. All through this, he insisted that Warren's eyes remained closed, so by the time Lash announced that he was done, the suspense in him was very built up.

Lash revealed him, and voila- he didn't look half bad. You couldn't tell he was bald, that's for sure. He had only one qualm.

"A comb over?" He asked Lash, who gave him a look.

"Well, yeah. It's the only thing that keeps people from noticing your lack of hair, Skunk Boy. Besides, think of all the famous, delicious looking people who've rocked a comb over. Shaant, from that indie band Anahera likes, and, um… Well, the point is, you could be bald, so shut up and thank me!"

Warren looked at him, smirking. "All right, thank you, Lash."

"You're darn welcome." He said.

About three hours after Lash and Anahera had left, Warren's mother came to visit. She was smiling largely, and the first thing she did when she saw him was toss her arms around him and kiss him on the cheek.

"I like your hair." Mira said brightly, and his sheepishly thank her.

"But guess what," She said, sitting by his legs and looking at him with an excited expression.

"What, Ma?" Warren asked, anxious to hear the good news.

"I got a job!" She hugged him tighter, squealing with happiness.

"Good to hear it, Ma. What do you do?"

"Oh, I'll be working at West Beauty Salon."

Come next morning, Lash was going to have an interesting new co-worker.

**Oh, what's going to happen? Well, that answer shall be revealed in time. When? I am not currently sure. Anyways, tomorrow will be my first official day back at school, so wish me luck!**


	11. And the Plot Thickens

**Finally, I have returned to you! This chapter has been grueling to write, but it's the chapter in which all of the pieces are shown, and in the next few chapters, they will fall together.**

**Or so I hope.**

**Disclaimer- Sky High is not mine, surprisingly.**

Warren walked into school trying to act as normal as possible, but he was self-conscious about his new hair and eager to see all of his friends again. He thanked the Lord that his teachers had all had the decency to send his homework to him, otherwise he would have been a nervous wreck with the prospect of catching up on almost a weeks worth of school. As soon as he was spotted by his friends, Layla, Anahera, Ethan, Zach, and Will all rushed up to dog pile on top of him. Magenta stayed behind with a murderous look on her face; Warren simply smirked in her direction and waved. Lash also chose to avoid the hugging fest, as he was standing next to a student that Warren had never seen before.

"Who is this?" Warren asked Lash once he was finally free from the arms of his comrades.

"This," Said Lash with a huge smile on his face. "Is Axe. Remember, I was telling you about him?" Axe had blond hair cropped off at his shoulder, dyed various shades of blue, red, and black. He had an eyebrow ring, and a glint under his lip that looked suspiciously like snake bites. He wore black skinny jeans with a large hole in the knee, and a shirt that looked about three sizes to big for him with an anarchy sign on it. This kid was either a bad joke or a serial killer.

"The juvenile delinquent?" Asked Warren. Upon saying this, he remembered that the aforementioned delinquent was within punching range, he quickly said. "No offence."

"Well, Warren," Said Axe, in a voice that was much higher than Warren had expected. "That's not exactly how the whole, 'Offence, No Offence' system works. And yes, I am the said JD, and damn proud of it, I'll have you know. The name's Axe Dorean."

"I, uh, hi. Nice to meet you?" Warren shrugged; What was one supposed to say in a situation like this?

"You know," Said Axe, "That you are the only one of your friends to react in such a manor to me. It is quite interesting to see the one portrayed as toughest being the biggest wuss out of the group."

"I am not a wuss!" Said Warren defensively.

"Yeah, Axe." Said Anahera, smirking, "Just because Warren has several sissy like behaviors does _not_ make him a pansy."

"Nope," Said Ethan, "It's the fact that he's scared of bees that does that."

Warren glared playfully at his two friends, who were now cracking up.

"All right, all right, I suppose I could have handled that a tad better." Warren finally agreed.

"No duh. By the way, I already know you're a pyro, so I guess it would only be fair for you to know mine. I'm, well, I'm a ninja."

Warren raised his eyebrows. "I didn't know that ninja skills counted as super powers."

Axe laughed. "Well, when I was living in Japan, I fell into a vat of toxic waste. And then, because you can't just leave a kid in a vat of toxic waste, somebody fished me out with this ancient samurai sword, which just so happened to possess some sort of magical powers. The toxic waste and the sword coupled together to give me the ancient powers of the ninja. So, I trained, then at age thirteen I flew stateside, and last week I found out about this school through Lash."

Axe saw the look on Warren's face.

"Seriously."

"Are you freaking for real?"

"Yeah, I know, it's weird, but the moral of the story is that I know have decided to use my powers for good instead of evil. God, aren't I great?'

"Great, splendid, and oh so humble." Said Anahera.

As the group laughed, the first bell rang for them to go to homeroom, and they departed down their respective hallways. Warren was glad of this for two reasons. The first, and main one, was that he was still pretty exhausted from his hospital stay, and was looking forward to sleeping through homeroom under Medulla's oblivious watch. The second one was that that Axe kid still sort of creeped him out.

Warren soon found that sleeping through homeroom was not a good plan. There was a pep rally scheduled for the following Friday, and the cheerleaders went through each homeroom making counts for how many students had participated in the days spirit event, which Warren knew nothing about. Luckily for him, the event for the day was "Get a New Hairstyle" and he was counted. Warren was actually not that much into school spirit, surprisingly, but he was looking forward to winning the prize. The homeroom with the most participation would win a chance to go off campus for lunch for a whole week, and the food in the cafeteria was anything but super. About half way through homeroom the preppy, loud cheerleaders left and Warren saw the time as his chance to finally get his chance to take a quick nap. However, almost as soon as his eyes closed, Mr. Medulla announced that the class had a new student. He presented Axe, who went to sit next to Warren.

"Hey," Said Warren, "I thought you were only fifteen?"

Axe shrugged. "The Japanese curriculum is harder, I skipped a grade in US schooling."

Whispers surrounded the two of them; What a pretty picture they must make. The school bad boys, sitting and socializing together. Maybe they were plotting the school's destruction. Warren laughed when he heard Mary Scott, a red headed shape shifter talking about his and Axe's supposed plans together. It was almost comical how gossip hungry the student body was. Part of Warren said that he should be quite annoyed at their behavior, but a larger part of him didn't quite care what any of them had to say about him in the least.

"So, what makes this school tick?" Asked Axe. For the first time, Warren noticed a light scar that stretched from his left ear, down his jaw line, to the point of his chin. Quickly realizing he was staring, he shook his head.

"I don't know, gossip, power, normal stuff?"

Axe didn't seem to notice reply, for he had been quickly distracted by the entrance of a girl. "Who is _she_?" he asked. It did not sound like the 'Oh my God, a super hot girl, who is she?' rather a question filled with worry.

Warren looked the girl over. "That's just Andie Laurence." Andie Laurence had just moved to Maxville, actually, her first day had been the previous week. She was in his fourth period class, and sat two desks away from him. At first, she got attention because of her looks. Her olive complexion seemed poreless, and her long, dark hair was never out of place. The most mesmerizing thing about her was her deep gray eyes, which could stare holes into anyone. However, once people got to know her, she was less sought after. Andie was loud and sarcastic, not to mention critical.

"What is her power?" Asked Axe, never taking his eyes off of her.

"Um," Began Warren, who was having trouble recalling it. "I am not quite sure, I think it has something to do with energy, or light, or something along the lines of that."

Axe's brow furrowed. His hand reached to his mouth, and hit bit tensely down on his index finger. For the first time, he turned away from the girl, and looked Warren in the eyes. Then, after holding his gaze for a couple minutes, Axe just turned away to look at the tile floor of the classroom, shaking his head.

"Do you know her?" Asked Warren. There had to be some sort of reasonable explanation for Axe's strange and peculiar behavior.

"Yeah," Axe began slowly, still not looking up from the ground. "I think I might have known her in a past life." Then, he fell silent, absent-mindedly playing with the hole in his jeans. He stayed that way until the bell rang, on which point he sprung up and out of the room faster than Warren had thought possible. For the first time, Warren noticed the boy's diminutive stature.

Sighing, Warren picked up his stuff and made his way to first period. He could not make heads or tails of Axe's actions. Knowing Andie in another life? What did that mean? Warren pondered this all through the day, and when the lunch bell rang, he was determined to ask Axe about it.

He got to the cafeteria earlier than usual, and there were only a few students in the room. Setting his things on the table, he paced nervously on the floor. Upon setting the linoleum on fire, Warren decided to sit down, and more importantly, calm down. Why was this Axe and Andie business bothering him so much? He wasn't sure why, but it just didn't sit right with him. Axe's strange behavior and Andie's unpleasant personality made him uneasy. Warren was not sure what was going on, but he knew that he did not like it at all.

Slowly, students filed into the lunchroom. Zach, Ethan, Magenta, Will, Lash, Anahera, and finally Layla all showed up to the table, talking cheerily amongst themselves. The only person missing was Axe.

"Hey, Lash," Warred asked the boy, "Where is Axe? I wanted to talk to him, and I haven't seen him since homeroom."

"I don't know Warren, I was just about to ask you the same question. Maybe he's just lost or something. Here, let me ask him." Lash pulled out a shiny red phone, flipped it open and quickly began texting.

After about a minute or two of this, Lash frowned and snapped the phone shut. "He isn't answering, maybe his phone is off, or it died. Wonder what happened to him…"

"He went home sick." Came the cold voice of Andie Laurence. She had been passing by, and must have heard their conversation. This was perfectly normal, and yet Warren could not help but feel suspicious and uncomfortable.

"Really?" Asked Anahera. "What happened to him?"

"Well, it was the start of second hour, and I just walked into the classroom, and I could see that he wasn't looking too hot. Then all of a sudden, he sort of, collapsed." Andie almost smiled as she said this. "It was like he was gasping for air or something, and he was clutching his heart. It was kind of sickening, actually." And with this, Andie started laughing.

Layla looked slightly disturbed by this. "Well, thanks for telling us, I guess."

"Anytime." Andie answered, and then turned on her heel and left, weaving in and out of lunch tables as she made her way across the room. Warren noticed this and wondered what she had been doing so far away from her table, and how she had conveniently been passing by as they were talking about Axe. It was a bit strange, and he made a mental note to investigate this Andie Laurence.

Lash was strictly a one-woman man, though on Monday afternoon he spotted one lady that just had to make him stop and go, "Dayum."

Nikki, the shop's current hair dryer, appreciated the woman's beauty as well. "Holy crap, look at the chick. How am I supposed to compete with that? Jesus Christ, I'm going to be single forever, aren't I?"

"Yes. Yes you are. I have to thank Mom, she definitely knows the kind of women we need to hire and keep around these place. That's one foxy lady, right there. You could learn a lot from her, Nikki." Said Chris, her brother and shop's poster boy. His and Nikki's mother owned the shop, and he often hung around the place, exchanging words with everyone. He was good PR, and not to mention a fantastic model. Nikki, though tiny, packed quite a punch, and her brother doubled over in pain as her fist made contact with his gut.

And then the woman walked a little closer, and Lash recognized her at once. "Holy BeJesus, it's Warren's mom, Mira!"

"Who? Asked Nikki, brushing her hair out of her eyes and squinting to get a better look at the strange newcomer.

"Um, no one, just someone I go to school with… it's his mom. She is a nice lady, fiery hot temper though."

"That's not the only thing fiery hot about her…" Chris trailed off his sentence. He was sitting on one of the shop's linoleum counter, next to the metallic cash register. He jumped off, walking towards Mira Peace, whistling as he went to greet her. "What a MILF…" Chuckling, Lash turned toward Nikki.

"So, I heard you got a new girlfriend." Said the petite stylist, smirking up at the taller boy.

"Yeah, she's-"

All of a sudden, a commotion broke out in the front of the shop. Lash turned around quickly to see Mira beating Chris's head with her large, floral pattern purse. "That- is- not- the- way- to- talk- to- a- lady!" She hit him ferociously between each word. Nikki and Lash burst into a loud laughter, clutching at their sides and leaning on others for support. Chris was slowly rubbing his now throbbing head, begging for Mrs. Peace to accept his apology. She simply jerked around, and walked closer to Lash and Nikki in the back of the store.

"Lash! How good it is to see a gentleman!" At this, Nikki smirked and look questioningly at Lash, eyebrows raised. "I certainly hope that all the employees here are _not_ like that rude young man!" It was clear she was mad, but her accent was too jolly for Lash to take her anger seriously.

"Sorry, Mrs.-" Began Nikki, stopping only when she realized she did not know Mira's name.

"Peace, like the opposite of war." Mrs. Peace said, "I'm new."

"The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation…" Murmured Lash quietly under his breath, before realizing that the silence in the conversation made it seem quite loud.

"Really Lash, RENT?" Said Nikki, looking skeptic. "You _are_ gay, aren't you?"

Mira tittered a lovely, tinkling laugh. "Well now, that's not true, now is it? How are things going with you and Anahera, Lash?"

"Uh," Lash felt slightly awkward talking about Anahera in front of Nikki. She was his ex-girlfriend, after all.

But Lash was spared from the awkward conversation by the arrival of Warren. Lash was quite pleased to see that he still wore his comb over outside of school. It was a pretty nice accomplishment of his, Warren's hair.

"Good afternoon, Mother." Said Warren, with a slight note of confusion in his voice.

"Um… Good afternoon, Warren." Mira's voice mirrored the unsure ness in Warren's.

"Good afternoon, Nikki." Lash said, for lack of a better thing to do at a time like this.

Warren ignored Lash's comment. "So, yes… I was just checking in, you know, so you knew I got back from school in one piece. You'd want me to check in, right? Isn't that what a normal person would do, yeah? I'm not exactly sure, you know we've never really, done this sort of thing before…"

"I, um, yes. I suppose you should check in with me, just so I know you're safe. Then again, we've never done it before… But yes, I suppose with me working here, you really should… You know, just so I know."

Lash stared at the Peace family. They were a couple of oddballs, weren't they? Then again, they hadn't really spent that much time together in the past. According to Warren, before the accident they had never spent more than eight or so hours together in the past twelve years.

"Well, um, I guess I'll see you when you get home then. When will that be, though?"

"Hm, I can't say I know for sure. Miss Nikki?"

"Oh," Muttered Nikki, shaking her head and snapping out of the Peace's strange conversation. "Mira Peace… Yes, here you are. Well, we'll have you until 6:00 on Mondays through Thursdays, and from 8:00 to 4:00 on Fridays and Saturdays, but because to day is an orientation, we might keep you for little longer."

"Well, I'll call you if they keep me past 8:30, Honey." Mira Peace was slipping into maternal mode, and Lash could see that this slightly disturbed Warren. "I made some casserole, it's in the refrigerator. Have a nice night." And then Mira went up to kiss Warren on the cheek, who was obviously very uncomfortable with this. Lash suppressed the urge to laugh out loud when Mira patted his face and said, "Oh, and Warren, you need a shave. I don't want you to look like some scruffy ragamuffin!"

"I… All right, Ma. I'll see you when you get home, have a good day." And with that, Warren left the boutique, hand rubbing the spot on which Mira had kissed him.

"Ah, that is _so_ sweet!" Anahera and Warren were sitting on the railing of his porch. The entire yard was covered in multicoloured leaves, as if the chilling breeze weren't sign of autumn enough. He had arrived home to get ready for his evening shift at the restaurant, and she had been leaning against his porch railing, looking calm, as though it was something she did every day. When Anahera had asked why he looked so strange, Warren had told her the story of Lash and the boutique, and Mira's kiss.

"No, it's just plain weird. Does your father kiss you?" Warren asked. He was unsure about this new relationship with Mira. The old one had been good because it had been predictable. He knew the patterns, the way his mother worked. It was confusing, this odd, kissing and hugging and checking in thing. It made him feel… strange.

"My dad kisses me many times, every day! It's normal, Warren. Chill out."

"Anahera, did you just ask a pyro to 'Chill Out'?"

When he said this, Anahera laughed her lovely, tinkling laugh. Warren watched her as her head bobbed, causing her hair to swish around. The sunlight made it look like a golden spun thread, and her dark chocolate eyes were smiling even when she stopped laughing.

No, he thought, this is wrong. But how could he help falling in love with her, this creature of beauty and perfection? She was absolutely the most amazing girl he'd ever met, and probably ever would meet.

She wasn't his, though. Lash and Anahera were in love, they were a beautiful couple, and did he really want to jeopardize his friends' relationship? Somehow, though, he needed to tell her how he felt. Because maybe if she knew, maybe she'd understand why his face always fell when she talked about going with Lash to Homecoming, or why a little hope always came to him when the she was fighting with her boyfriend.

But no, instead he sat there watching her beautiful smile and her breath taking eyes and wishing that he had the guts to tell her how he really felt. Still smiling at Warren, unaware of the affect it was having on him, she asked, "Well, the real reason, I decided to sit on your porch today is that I had to ask you something. I have to make this quick though, because I didn't tell my dad that I was coming here, and you know how worried he gets when I'm missing." Anahera smiled at this, remembering a time when she had been late from school because of a detention, and Stewart Stronghold, hero extraordinaire, nearly had a panic attack. "Well, what I was going to ask you was, when do you get off work tonight, Warren?"

All of a sudden he was alert. "Um, I'm working there from four to eight today. Why?" He had a large smile on his face, and was having trouble resisting the strong urge to set the porch on fire with his excitement. Did Anahera want to see him after work? To do what, pray tell?

"Cool! Lash and I are going out to eat at The Paper Lantern, and it would be cool if you could join us."

Oh, she wanted him to eat with her and her boyfriend. Because, as a friend, that's what he did. That is what he would always be stuck doing, having dinner with the girl of his dreams and her boyfriend.

Sighing, he said, "Oh, all right. Sure, I would love to join you guys for dinner."

"Awesome! Well, I guess I will be seeing you later on tonight!" As Anahera said this, she jumped off the railing and dashed off the porch, running to her purple bicycle, which had been tossed carelessly in the road. Before hopping on, she waved goodbye, then mounted and sped off breezily down the street.

Warren took a deep breath as he watched her leave, and then went inside to go get ready for work.

**Dun, dun, dun! Will something mysteriously significant happen at the restaurant? Will Warren and Mira ever get used to each other? What is going on with Axe and Andie? And when is the next chapter going to be uploaded? To get answers to these questions and more, you will just have to tune in next time, kids!**


	12. As The Axe Swings

**Surprise, surprise! Guess who's back with a brand new rap? Obviously Eminem and not I. We do have something in common, though. Neither of us own the move Sky High!**

It was 8:15 when Lash and Anahera walked through the door, smiling and laughing as the cool fall winds blew, sending a draft into a restaurant. The Indian summer had broken at around the day he'd crashed to the sidewalks of Maxville as a fiery inferno. Warren thought it was rather poetic in that sense, but he played it up as mostly coincidence.

"Those are your friends, yes?" Madame Ling said, coming up to stand behind him.

"Yeah…" he said, his voice trailed off. Friends. Great, another reminder that he was destined to have his love unrequited by Anahera.

"You like her?" Said Madame Ling, and Warren's eyes grew wide.

"What? I, I don't like her, not me. Lash likes her. That is why they are going out." He said, nodded vigorously.

Madame Ling raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. Fantastic, it was obvious that he loved his best friend. He was turning into Layla Williams a little too fast for his comfort. He needed to get his mind off Anahera.

Unfortunately, this was next to impossible. Lash's arm was around Anahera, and Warren tried his hardest to stifle his jealousy. It only succeeded for about thirty seconds, and then, Anahera kissed Lash's cheek. Warren inadvertently set the plate he was putting away on fire. He quickly hid it from Madame Ling, and then went to greet his friends.

"Hey, you guys!" He said, cheerfully. Lash nodded at him, most likely appreciating his hair, (Which had remained in it's comb over style even in a pony tail, thanks to hair gel.), while Anahera gave him a smile, a beautiful smile.

Warren took a deep breath. Focus, he told himself. "Hey, there's a booth in the back waiting for you guys. I'm going to go change my shirt, I'll be with you in a second."

They nodded, and Warren watched as his friends walked off to a quiet booth in the back of the restaurant.

Making his way to the small bathroom in the back of the establishment, Warren thought about how to deal with his situation with Anahera. He was going to have to explain to her someday, that he really was madly in love her. But for now, he guessed he could just let her and Lash be happy. So, he would have to find something to put Anahera out of his mind. Maybe he should start looking around for a girlfriend. It had been over a month since Crystal and he had fallen apart. It was strange, he had been perfectly happy with his pseudo-relationship until he had met Anahera. Trying to pin point the exact moment when he had first fallen in love with her, Warren took down his hair and got a shirt out of the duffle bag he had brought with him. Taking off his shirt, he mused that it might have been the grape fruit day. Yeah, having somebody save your life could really make you admire them.

And then, as he was standing shirtless in the dingy, single person bathroom, the door swung open.

"What the-" he yelled, as a blushing Andie Laurence stood there, gasping.

"I- I'm sorry… I, oh my gosh, I am so sorry, Warren. I thought it… Oh my God."

He listened to her bumbled apology for about five seconds, then reached over, closed the door, and continued dressing.

That was awkward.

When he got to the booth, Lash and Anahera were already opening a mound of fortune cookies.

"Did you know, Warren", said Lash, as he opened a cookie, "That you can add 'in bed' to the end of any fortune, and make it sound dirty?"

Warren smiled and sat down next to Lash. He had been tempted to take the spot next to Anahera, but that would become awkward very fast if he said or did the wrong thing. The aforementioned heartthrob tossed him a cookie.

" 'Pay respect to your elders'…" He read, and looked over at Madame Ling, shuddering. Lash and Anahera laughed wildly, stuffing their fists in their mouths to soften their snickers.

" 'Good friends will always surround you.' " It was Anahera's turn.

"Sounds kinky." Said her boyfriend, and this earned him a playful shove.

"What's yours?" Asked Warren.

"Mine is, 'You cannot get to first base with your foot on second.' Funny, you can the way I do it."

Anahera's mouth opened wide and she started shaking her head, blushing. Warren and Lash, however, were both gripping the table in support to deal with their giggles.

And so that was how there evening progressed, with the three of them sharing smiles and laughs around the chipped linoleum of the table. After a while, Warren realized that he could sort of glance at Anahera without his heart hurting too much. It was good to be her friend, and maybe, someday, it would become more than just friendship. But for now, it was all that they had and Warren valued it more than anything.

The night seemed to slip away; their short time spent together was full of talking about classes and people, and Warren even pulled up enough courage to tell the two of the Andie Laurence story.

"Dude, I do not know what it is, but I do _not_ trust that chick. I mean, there is definitely something going on with her, I just am not sure of what it is yet."

This comment came from Lash, after Warren had told the tale of her accidentally seeing him shirtless. Anahera nodded in agreement and Warren decided to put in his two sense about the subject, as well.

"I know, Man, something is not right about her. Today, when she was laughing about Axe was having that weird pain in class was just messed up."

"It was just weird. And the way she conveniently popped up right when we discussing that was so bizarre!" Exclaimed Anahera.

So she, too, had noticed how peculiar Andie's timing was. Warren had at first brushed it off as coincidence, but now his stomach was turning, as a feeling of suspicion was growing stronger and stronger.

"That reminds me," said Lash look forlorn about the discomfort of his friend. "I stopped by Axe's house after school, and no one was home. Not a single sound or light came from the place; it looked more like a ghost town than somewhere he was living.

"This is all getting way too Gwen Grayson for my taste." Commented Warren. He noticed that as he said the fabled evil genius's name, Lash cringed. He'd always been sensitive about the dealings of his once master, and, not to mention, his best friend's baby mama.

"Speaking of which, um, they named their child Sophia." Said Lash uneasily, unsure of how to bring up the subject. "They sent me a bunch of pictures, or, at least, Speed's mom did. Cute kid, I suppose. Of course, the police immediately confiscated her. I'm willing to say that's a pretty good thing, too. How messed up would the parenting of two villains be?"

"Well, we know how messed the child of _one_ villain can be…" Warren said, smirking. Anahera looked stricken, but Lash challenged Warren with a smirk of his own. It occurred to Warren suddenly that he knew not much about Lash's family. He'd make it a point to ask Anahera about it, seeing as he wasn't sure if Lash was the type to air out his parents' dirty laundry. He certainly didn't seem like it.

"I think we should go by Axe's house one more time before we go home tonight." Voiced Anahera, with an obvious concern for her new friend.

Lash nodded in agreement, and said that he could drive them there. He'd recently moved in with his grandmother, who, by the gossip mills that flitted around the school, was not much better than Lash's parents. She did, however, have an old Chevy truck, orange and from the year 1961. It had only one long seat in the front, and the stick shift didn't exactly make for easy driving. Technically, it was illegal for Lash to be driving it by himself and without an adult, but he ignored this law, as he did with many others.

The road that Axe's house was located on was one full of pot holes and litter, it was made of dirt and slowly turning to mud with the autumn rains. Lash maneuvered the car like Danica Patrick, however, and the ride was much more smooth than Warren had anticipated it be.

From the car stereo blasted a mix tape of music, and it was a strange atmosphere inside the automobile, both calm and excited, though for what they were not sure. Warren mentally went through a list of possibilities of things that they could find at Axe's house. There were the average things, like going to the doctors to get medicine for his troubled heart, or the more morbid possibilities, like mass murderers and government experimentation. Whatever they were going to find there, it was a given that it would probably involve Andie Laurence.

Lash had not exaggerated; the house did look abandoned. His inquisitive girlfriend, however, would not accept this answer. She sent the boys out to come the place for another entrance and got to work trying to destroy the lock on the front door.

"Why don't you just pick it, that'd be easier than trying to destroy what looks like… titanium?" Suggested Lash as he watched her struggle with the metal.

"Now why would anyone need a titanium dead bolt?" Questioned Warren as he two came up from the discarded searching to watch Anahera try and disassemble the lock. It looked pretty difficult, but Warren knew better of Anahera than to try and offer her help. It was nearly impossible, though, and eventually she turned to them, with a pained expression.

"This is ridiculous, what could this house be hiding that's so important as to make a door that keeps out even supers?"

"I could offer a few guesses," said Lash, picking up something off of the ground by the door mat.

"Warren at first could not make out what it was, but when he finally realized what Lash was holding, the entire scene was much too familiar for his liking.

He held paper, charred beyond recognition. Warren could still, however, manage to make out a few words that had been saved from the flames at the top of the page.

" 'Automatic molecular disfiguration'… What in the hell does that mean?" Said Lash as read some of the still legible words on the paper. It was strange, but Warren could have sworn that he'd heard that phrasing before.

And then it hit him.

"We need to get out of here, you guys. Now. Fast. It's not safe."

"What does that mean, Warren?" Asked Anahera, gesturing to the papers.

"I can't tell you its exact meaning, but I know someone who can. And believe me, from what I do understand about that phrase, it's not something you want to be near by."

"What about Axe, though?"

Warren looked Lash in the face; the boy was clearly very worried about his missing friend.

"That's not something that's looking that good right now. If he's with whomever formulated this plan, he's probably dead by now. And if he's somewhere in that house… Well, God save him."

"What? That's crazy! And what if he is in that house, Warren? We just can't leave him there!" Lash's eyes were maniac, and his voice was high in rushed panic.

"Well, what do you expect of us to do, Lash? Go searching through a land mine of a house for someone who may or may not be there? We could be risking or lives trying to save someone who's already gone!"

"But we have to try!" Scream Lash, and with that, he tried to slam the door down with his body. This was unsuccessful, however, so, with tears in his eyes he turned to Warren. "Please," he began, "We need to just look. You guys can stay out here, but I need to save my friend."

"Lash," said Anahera, would been quiet since they had first read the inscription. "I am not going to let you go in there… alone."

"Damn it all…" Said Warren, and then, with a fire ball he didn't know he had the strength to conjure, he blew up the door.

The house looked as though no one had lived there in at least one hundred years. The furniture was covered with dusty sheets, and their own footsteps against the ancient wooded floorboards and badly faded carpets caused dirt and other such debris to blow into the stale room.

It smelled like death, and Warrens jaw tightened as his heart began to race faster. This was a bad idea, but he knew that they needed to at least check fro Axe. What if he was in here somewhere? He would be cold and alone, disabled by the effects of the mutations inducing experiments that were surely going on around the premise.

It wasn't until they had searched the entire three floors of the house that they noticed a small door under the stairs. Its seams were hidden by the vast amount of sand that seemed to cover one third of the house. Warren could only imagine how the sand got there, and quickly stopped doing so as soon as a rather gruesome idea formulated into his mind.

"Shall we?" Questioned Lash, gesturing to the door. Anahera and Warren both nodded in approval, so he opened the door.

Inside, beyond the mass amounts of cobwebs and trunks and mysterious objects that none of them had ever seen, there was another door. It was much smaller than the other one, and when opened it led only towards an empty room.

Anahera got down on her hands and knees, and began to caress the dirty floor. Warren and Lash both stared on with looks of confusion, but after a few moments, she shouted a triumphant, "Eureka!"

"What is it, Lassie?" Lash asked, though despite his cheery demeanor he was obviously shaken by the state of his friend's house.

"It's a trap door." Anahera said, pleased with herself. She slowly ran her fingers around its perimeter, and eventually found a spot to lift it up at.

"How on earth did you know that that was there?" Asked Warren in disbelief.

"Oh, the entrance to the Secret Sanctum at my old house was through a trap door. I just of assumed that almost everyone's was like that."

So they began their descent down an unsteady rope ladder, unsure of what they were going to find at the bottom of it. The climb down seemed to take about three eternities, and when they finally found themselves at a landing, they were all very relieved to be on solid ground again.

However, what they saw was not as comforting. As they reached the ground, they found themselves in a room full of buzzing machinery, odd looking metal boxes showing numerical information and large, dangerous looking objects standing menacingly overhead. Axe was on a table, not moving. A sheet covered his entire body, with only his multicouloured hair sticking out to identify him. All three of them rushed over to help, but it was Anahera who lifted up the sheet.

The image burned into Warren's retinas painfully. Axe was completely naked, his freckled skin burned and scarred. His entire body was covered with such deformities; there were places with huge, festering gouges in them, covered with a black, grotesque looking material. Warren gasped, and held onto the silently crying Anahera, but Lash stepped forward to his friend.

"Axe," he respired softly, and stared down at his friend. His face was the worst, bloodied and twisted, with skin ripped to shreds and charred black. The hair, which they had identified him by, was missing in places, replaced by oozing blisters and scabs. Lash ran a hand down his damaged friend's cheek, and a tear rolled down his own face.

The creature was barely recognizable as the bright, cheery boy that they had laughed with only hours earlier. What a short life for the poor fifteen year old boy, and what a tragic ending.

Or so Warren had thought. But as Lash stared on, a soft moan escaped Axe's lips. Suddenly, the mood of the room changed dramatically. They were not longer in still mourning; they were now in a race against time to save their abused friend.

"AXE!" Scream Lash, his voice hoarse. His friend merely moaned more and scrunched his eyes together in pain. "It's going to be okay, Man. I promise you. Just hold on for a little while, and it'll all turn right."

Axe made no reply to this other than to grit his teeth. Lash quickly turned to face his still standing friends.

"We need to get him out of here, right now. I don't now how, but we have to."

This proved to be easier said than done. The boy was melted to the table, and let out his first scream of excruciating pain when they tried to lift him up.

"Is there anything that we can do?!" Demanded Lash. "There has to be some way to separate him from that table."

"I could rip him off, I suppose," pondered Anahera, urgently. "But the pain would be almost unbearable, for all of us." She nodded in notice to Lash, would had cringed every time his friend had let out a noise of pain."

"Not to mention that he'd probably die from the blood loss. Fire isn't something to mess with, you know." Warren added this as an after thought, it was a lesson that he'd learned long ago.

"Well, can we just move the table?" Lash begged, with good reasoned impatience in his voice.

"It's worth trying," said Anahera, "But I don't know if we could get him back up the shoot."

"Let's do it, I mean, what are our other options?"

"Got it." Said the girl, and with a great heave she managed to separate the metal examination table from its equally metal base. Below was a series of wires and circuits, each buzzing and beeping at a ferocious rate. The technology made Warren's head spin.

And then, Axe sighed a soft sigh, and opened his eyes. They too were beaten, blood shot and altered in colour. A violent, deep scarlet now replaced the merry bright blue tint that they had possessed before.

"Leave me." He demanded, his breathy voice barely audible.

"Never." Said Lash, breathing heavily as he lifted the table that his friend lay open in order to begin he ascent up the ladder. Thinking of a better plan, he simply stretched to an unreal height and pushed the table through the small opening to Anahera, who had already made her way up. The two of them pushed and pulled, and inch-by-inch the table moved through the slim space.

"You…. Must." Said Axe, once again using the same defeated tone as he had before.

"But why?" Asked Warren, growing more worried as hurried up the step ladder to help the still-giant Lash and Anahera with the table.

"It… It isn't… Safe. For you… for anyone."

"You're a part of anyone too, Man. And you're coming with us. We're getting you out of the hell hole."

"They'll… They'll come back. Find out… That I'm missing… and then… you guys…" But the rest of Axe's sentence was drowned out by the successful final shove, pushing him fully up to the next floor. Managing to get him through the many doors of the closet and intricate house was difficult, but not as impossible as moving him through that first trap door.

Finally, they escaped the house. Warren was considering setting it ablaze, but then reminded himself that they should probably not be making a scene. Axe had said that "they", whomever "they" was, would be back to check, and probably soon. He prayed to God, Jesus, Allah, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whomever it was that was preceding over their affairs that they would all make it out safe and sound.

A mad dash was made to Lash's truck, and Axe was laid awkwardly across the front seat. Warren and Anahera sat in the bed of the truck, and after pulling a u-turn, Lash raced out of the yard as fast as possible. His disregard for the speed limit continued until they reached Warren's house.

Quickly, Warren worked to bring Axe into the house. Lash parked his car under a tree and jumped out to assist him. Anahera quickly made a call to her father, saying nothing but demanding he come to Warren's house in a voice that clearly said that she was not to be questioned or disagreed with. After doing that, she simply lifted the boy on top of her shoulders, and dragged him into Warren's front room.

Mira stepped out of the kitchen, not prepared for the scene that met her eyes. She gasped and dropped the bowl she had in her hands, then ran up to Axe.

"What, what has happened here!?" She screamed. Neither Lash nor Anahera could speak much Spanish, let alone understand it when spoken rapid fire, so Warren intervened.

"Mother," he said as calmly as a person in his position could, "I need you to tell me all that you know about Dad's molecular disfiguration project."

Mira at first said nothing, and then made a quick, hurried phone call, asking two people to arrive at her house as soon as possible. By the time she clicked her phone shut, Stewart Stronghold had burst through the front door. When he saw the condition that Axe was in, he turned and locked the door the best he knew how, and then raced over to help.

Both of the adults demanded to know what had happened. All at once, Lash, Anahera, and Warren detailed the story of how they had found their friend in such a state. Mira and Stewart both listened as they tended to Axe, and Warren's mother finally called for an ambulance from the Bardi clinic. Both of them, however, wanted to know about Andie Laurence. They told them everything they knew about her, even the awkward shirt story. Many times through the talking, Stewart and Mira exchanged concerned glances, looking more and more worried as time went on.

Finally, the ambulance arrived, and Mira and Stewart carted the poor Axe onto a stretcher and into the big white van. Warren and the other children were told to stay at home, And Mrs. Peace told them to watch for an arrival. Though they protested, that was exactly what they ended up doing, stuck imaging the fate of their poor friend.

It had been about forty-five minutes when the company that Mira had predicted arrived. Two people, nearly identical barged into Warren's house without saying a word.

Neither of them could be a day past twenty-five, with their shiny, sleek black hair glinting in the lights above. Both of their soft curls framed eyes as blue as the ocean, with swirls of green and gold around the pupil. Dark, full, intense eyebrows were in pairs across each face, and frown lines were already etched into the two youngster's foreheads. The girl of the group had pale lips in contrast to her tan skin, and they looked to be about the colour of old coffee. Her male doppelganger had the same textured smile, though his mouth was wider, his lips more chapped.

Together they stood in the doorway, tall and muscular, as Warren got up to greet them.

"What the Hell are you doing here, you traitors?"

**Oh, I'm so mean, aren't I? I ignore you for five months and then give you a lame cliffhanger? Well, I promise I'll update sooner… But then again, I said that before, didn't I? I'll try to, but don't come and egg my house if I don't get a new chapter up soon. It's hard to right continuously, as I am sure you all know.**

**Also, who wants Axe to die? Raise your hands high, Ladies and Gentlemen; you may just change the man's fate.**


	13. World in Their Hands

**Second chapter in two days, not too bad for not having anything for several months. This also marks the time where this becomes less of a drama and more an adventure! Yay for me, because I absolutely SUCK at writing drama.**

**Disclaimer- This is an adventurous fan fiction. Nothing more, nothing less.**

"Traitors?" Questioned the woman.

"Is that any way to speak to the only sane blood relatives that you have left?" The man sat down on Warren's threadbare couch, making himself at home. Lash and Anahera stared confused at each other, neither had known of Warren's family, other than his mother. But these people couldn't be related to Warren, they looked nothing like him. The two of them looked like Barron Battle more than anything, and Anahera reasoned that they must be from his side of the family. She took that that probably was not a good thing.

"I still have Mom." Warren pointed out.

"He said sane, Little Brother." This harsh comment came from the girl who must have been Warren's sister. Her eyes were cold, but open at the same time. They were like a winter day, frigid and inviting at the same time.

"Shut up, you bitch. Mira is a great damn mother, and you don't have to blame her for everything that happened."

"Oh, Sweetheart, it's not blame. It's simply…" Warren's brother looked to his sister.

"Acknowledgement of failure."

"Go to hell, slut." Replied Warren, flipping his older sister off. Suddenly, the elder sibling was upon him.

"Watch your tongue, you little bastard!" His voice was loud, and Lash instinctively put his arms out around Anahera to protect her.

"Oh calm down, Iggy. No use blaming the boy, its our stupid mother's fault."

"I told you not to talk about her like that!" Screamed Warren, whilst bursting into flames. His anger showed on his face and in his clenched fists, in the way that each breath was sharp

"Look at that, Nina. She's got him trained pretty well. Defensive as shit and not to mention bloody deaf to the voice of reason."

"Why did you come? Are you just here to make a mockery of _our_ mother?"

"Actually, Darling," calmly chirped Nina, "We're here because we love you, and our pathetic excuse for a mother, and want neither of you to die."

"What?"

"Come with us, we'll explain."

"You're not taking Warren anywhere that Lash and I can't come along to."

Anahera's tone was feisty, but Warren saw the fear and worries in her eyes.

"Fine, have it your way. Just… put on something a little more respectable, all of you."

"And why the hell should we?" Growled Lash.

"Because," Nina began, "you are going to be meeting Mr. Battle, and he likes his respect."

They flew to the penitentiary by jet, all with uneasy moods and thoughts. Like Iggy had ordered, they sat in fine clothing, ready for their meeting, at least on the outside. The men were wearing suits, Lash's was Warrens, and thusly a bit small and uncomfortable. Warren was wearing his father's, the same one he'd chosen for homecoming. It was an ironic gesture, though he highly doubted that his father would recognize the outfit. He hadn't seen in over a decade, after all. While Nina wore the slim fitting tartan dress that she had arrived in, Anahera had to raid Mira's closet for something to wear. She had found a sheer green dress that made her look regal, but did not fancy wearing something so revealing in front of a super villain, especially after Iggy and Nina had told her about Barron's relationship with the mother of Warren. Instead, she had gotten dressed in an ill-fitting tweed suit and skirt combination. Personally, Anahera though paying any amount of respect to a killer was ridiculous, but she went along with it. Secretly, she was terrified of both Iggy and Nina, and quite suspicious of their actions. Despite his obvious anger towards them, however, Warren seemed to trust them. This calmed her a bit, but she was still on edge.

Nerves ran high through out the flight. Iggy was nervous for Warren. He and Baron had had a sharp history in the past, and though he knew not to what extent it went to, he knew it was bad. It was also a good amount of concern to him that Warren was so close to his mother. The woman who had let Baron terrorize the family, then lead the rest of them down the same train wreck workaholic path as she.

Nina was disappointed in her twin; It wasn't Warren's fault that their mother was a psychopath. And she couldn't really blame him for his love of said psychopath, because he had been so young when the entire thing with Barron had gone down. He didn't have the story of their mother before he was born, how she stayed with Baron even after he abused her and her children. She had tried to hard to bore a pyromaniac to follow in her husband's footsteps, and when she finally had things did get a little better. Nina supposed that Warren didn't have much of a memory of how his mother let his father treat her; he'd been only four years old when Barron had been put away for life. She bit her lip, it had been twelve years since the two men had met last, and all hell was destined to break loose.

Lash was scared that he'd see one too many familiar faces for his liking; was worried about what Anahera would think; was praying for the first time in his life for the savior of his friend.

Anahera looked at her hands and let her thoughts wander to Warren. The thought of meeting his father terrified her; after all, she was a Stronghold. And what did the man have to do with this whole mess, anyways? She remembered the earlier part of the day, when she had all thought it a cruel and elaborate scheme by Andie Laurence. A tear rolled done her cheek as she thought even earlier, when they all sat around the table of the Paper Lantern, smiling and laughing.

Warren Peace was terrified of his father. The last time he had seen the man, he'd gone to the hospital shortly after, with a skull that burst open. The day was still a vivid memory in his mind.

It was a hot and humid day in early August, and he hadn't been much past four years old. Baron and Mira were fighting, or rather, Baron was fighting. Mira was only standing there, silent, taking every blow and insult as though it was nothing. And to her, her realized, it probably wasn't. Thinking back, all of his memories about the both of his parents involved the Barron mistreating his mother, and her doing nothing to stop him. He could sort of see what Iggy and Nina meant about his mother being weak, but they obviously did not understand what a position that their mother was in. They knew of his loud yelling and disrespect, but they had never seen the vicious violence, the anger that seemed to possess his father's eyes whenever Mira made even the slightest mistake. He knew even then that his father frightened his mother, and thusly, his father frightened him as well.

But moving his thoughts from his broken family, he thought more intently about the last time he had seen his father. It had been the first and last time that he had ever pointed out the wrongness of his father's actions. It had been the day of the incident…

Crying, the four-year-old Warren had berated his father about his actions, and, just as he had seen Barron do to Mira so many times over the years, his father hit him, squarely in the jaw, before tossing him into a wall. That's what broke his skull in half, damaging his brain and causing his epilepsy, drowning out a hand full of memories that he supposed weren't really worth keeping anyways.

Their ride touched down in a busy metropolitan area; Warren guessed that it was Dublin by the clean air and hustle of people. It was a beautiful city that he had always wanted to go to, but now it was just another stop on their mission. This was no vacation, he reminded himself; it was a rescue.

They got into approximately eight taxies, one helicopter, three limousines, and one car jacked bright red Camaro. Anahera mused that she had never traveled so far or in a place so beautiful, and was sad that the reason they were there was over the near-death of a friend. Once again, as her mind went to Axe, she crossed her fingers in his fight for life.

Eventually, they stopped outside a wild looking building, resembling a castle against its lush green background. It was early morning now, and each had fallen asleep, but no one seemed to be able to nap for more than an hour. It was a stressful time, each of them so frazzled.

The prison, which Barron Battle had been transferred to after the Gwen Grayson episode, was inside the stony building, which turned out to be nearly invisible to the average person's eye. It was fiercely guarded by thick cement walls and super heroes abound, It the most interesting building any of them had ever been in, by far, but none of them seemed to notice or care. They followed the standard protocol, each being searched and drug tested before they were allowed to even speak to Barron. Lash saw the disappointment in his girlfriend's eyes when his drug testing came back with a slight hint of alcohol, but they both had bigger things to worry about than a relapse in his drinking. With Warren leading the way, the five of them entered a small conference room, with a clear glass panel between that and a small, metal cell. The tinfoil that was so obviously stacked against the walls was graffiti-ed on, but held strong as Barron Battle entered the room.

Time had not been good to the Barron, but perhaps his aging was more of the effect of living in a ten by ten cell for twelve years. His skin was pale as it had always been, but at this point in time it was etched with worry lines and his once vibrant blond hair was streaked with gray. The blue eyes that had captivated and manipulated so many people, however, remained. They were the same eyes that Nina and Iggy had, and it was his white skin that had lead to their own mixed complexions. They both had so much of him in their faces; Warren was happy that, aside from his powers, he took after his mother. This man was a killer, an abuser, a liar, and a cheater. He was no man that Warren waned anything to do with.

Everyone watched the young pyro's face as it contorted into shapes of confusion and rage, each of them holding their breath for his reaction. But it was the Barron who spoke first.

"Well, well, well! Haven't seen you in a long time, you son of a bitch."

And with that, Warren leaped up against the windows, screaming of death threats and trying to desperately to melt the glass.

"Warren! Calm down, Warren, please!" Shouted Anahera, who was crying at the state that her best friend was in. He turned to her, his eyes wild and pleading.

"Anahera, this man is the reason that hundreds of people are dead. The reason I have epilepsy, the reason that I am feared. This man is the reason my mother still has scars along her back, and that she wouldn't dare try and move anywhere away from Maxville. Do you know how many lives he's ruined, how many people he was frightened and crushed?"

"Oh, so the whore let him beat her, did she? And right in front of Warren! Jesus Christ, that woman has no concept of a backbone! I'm surprised she even-"

"Will you stop?! Okay, so maybe mom wasn't being as strong as you two, but can you give her a break? She was frightened, damn it, and the person that you need to blame for that state is this man, right here."

"Oh, believe me, Warren, we have." Nina spoke this time instead of Iggy. "Haven't you ever wondered who turned him in?"

Then it was Barron's turn to pound up against the glass. "YOU LITTLE BASTARDS!" He screamed, with no concept of empathy in his voice. His eldest children merely smirked, and then simultaneously flicked him off. This made Warren feel slightly better about his siblings, but they still obviously did not understand their mother, and probably never would.

"How could you have, guys? You got shipped off to boarding school right when I was born…"

"Well, we'd always kept a couple cameras hidden around the house. There are perks to being geniuses you know." Said Iggy in a sarcastic tone, though everyone in room could see the sincerity on his face.

It was clear to all that neither twin trusted their parents very much, and Anahera supposed they had good reason. Lash bemusedly thought of Nina and Iggy's reaction to his parents; that'd give them something to get mad about. His father had never hit his mother, but both parents had gotten thrashed and beat him and his siblings up pretty badly. Whenever that happened when he was a child, he would simply go to Speed's, but nowadays he found himself wandering alone at night through Maxville, bleeding and bruised. He had many a time considered going to Anahera's house, but he figured that he could never tell her. She, much like Iggy and Nina, would never understand. It was just the way she was though, her fearlessness and sense of self-preservation (or lack thereof.) It led her to the thinking that everyone could do the things that she did, that everyone could drop a situation that they didn't like, or that was hurting them. He an alcoholic, for God's sakes! Dropping bad situations was not his forte.

"But Father Dearest, we came not to talk about such things. We came strictly on a business trip." Nina's voice was cold and hard, much like the way that her blue eyes pierced into the flesh of her father from across the room.

"Oh, so this is going to be different than your Christmas visits?" Asked the Barron. Warren flashed his siblings a look, but Nina merely shrugged and made the crazy sign against her ear.

"And, as I have noticed, you've broughten a couple children that I can't remember. Hi, kids, I'm Warren's dad. And someday, he's going to grow up and be just like me!"

"Hi, kids, I'm Warren and my dad is a psycho social dick face with no concept of reality." The younger Peace said this as he too hoisted his middle finger in the direction of his father.

"You remind me so much of your mother, Warren. Both of you had no concept of respect."

"And you did? You beat my mother black and blue, and did the same to me. You're a cruel, sadistic… Killer. You're just an insane little mass murderer, you know that? You tried to dominate the world, but the way you treated your family was your shortcoming."

"Love, I'm all of those things, save for insane. But, moving away from your own insecurities, because you _know_ that some of those qualities can be seen in you, as well, may I inquire to why you're paying me this visit."

"We need to know," began Iggy, "about the IMD Project."

"I see." Said Barron. "Well, how about you step into my office?"

The 'office' as he called it was a small storage room, with yet another large window facing another cell, which was connected to Barron's original. The man shuffled through a large metal door, which had been unlocked using a special code from outside the cell. The prisoner warden was a tall, burly man with a beard and barrel chest, and looked as though he did not trust Barron with anything. Warren could not blame him, he knew that didn't trust his father, either. When you're a mass murderer, people's faith in your actions drops rather quickly.

"Iggy, Dearest, would you mind taking out the files in the top drawer of the file cabinet closest to the door? Yes, yes the orange one. Thank you."

The files were all think, and full of diagrams of double helixes, stretching on for pages. Mathematical and scientific formulas covered every square inch of plain paper, and Warren was confused and overwhelmed.

"Niobium… Plutonium… Radon… Is this… a collection of elements?" Asked Anahera, furrowing her brow.

"Aye, that wench be smarter than she looks!"

Warren sighed. His father really was out of his mind, but he possessed the information that they needed to save Axe, and, quite possibly, the entire world.

"Now, little lady, do you know what both of those elements have in common?"

"Well, they're both radioactive… And is that a map toward a francium ore? What could anyone use that for, other than to…"

"Keep going, Sugar." Warren tensed at these words from his father. That old man had no right to call her that, how dare he!

"Well, they could create some form of nuclear warfare, I'm sure, but they could also create a Kyrtian Tear, which could disable all of the super heroes on the planet… except those with an immunity. But that's impossible; no one could build up an immunity to something that has never been created."

"And how do you know it's not been created yet, hm?"

"That's… that's not even considerable. How could anyone possess that much francium? And no one could do that without getting severely… hurt."

"Axe." Said Lash, leaping up from his lean against the wall. "It was Axe that must have done it. I don't know he got involved, probably be force, judging the fear in his eyes, but he must have been the one to do it. They have these ingredients, An, to create a, a Kryptian Tear. They're building an immunity, and they're going to attack."

Anahera looked crushed.

"Well," said Nina, breaking a long silence. "I suppose it's time to evacuate. Go underground or something, I don't know, but we'll think of something."

"No." Whispered Warren, and then again loudly. "No. We can't just sit back!"

"Did you not listen to the girl, War? The entire population of super heroes just got turned into regular people, and the world gets thrown to the mercy of these villains. Game over, Warren. We can't compete against that. All we can do is surrender and abandon ship."

"Never! We can fight this, Iggy. Super powers don't make people heroes, resourcefulness and bravery and willingness to fight does. If and when this thing is dropped, we must at least try to hold them at bay. There's about six billion people on this planet, we must be able to do something!"

"Even if we somehow managed to get everyone on the planet working together, we still wouldn't be able to fight off death rays, Warren."

"Wait a minute…" Said Lash, suddenly and excitedly, "We can ask Axe just what they're planning on doing, and formulate a defense against that. We can ask him where they got the materials, and we can make a Kryptian Tear immunization of our own!"

"That would be a great plan, if that boy was not currently just barely hanging on. I'd be surprised if he can even get outside of his head, let alone tell a coherent story. With an experience like that, it's not something you can just get over. Your friend might just end up being a prisoner of his own mind, trapped in denial and shock."

"Well, Miss Nina, you obviously do not know our Axe." Anahera's expression was defiant. "He knows that we are waiting for him on the other side, he'll pull through, I can guarantee it."

"If you're so sure, I suppose now it's but a waiting game. I want you, young lady, to study these files and get all the information that you can out of them. Nina and I will discuss strategy with the authorities. Lash, if that really is your name, I suppose you can start loading up an arsenal. Because even if we somehow gained a vaccine against the effects of the tear, we would still have one hell of a fight against us."

"And me, what am I to do?" Warren did not like getting left out of this plan, a plan that could save his friends and show that he was indeed not really his father's son. Everyone would know that, living or dying, he was on the side of justice and peace for all.

"You, little brother, need to coax your friend Andie Laurence into inviting you to join her team." There was a sharp intake of breath in the room. "We have determined that she does in fact have something to do with this."

"Fine. Does this mean you guys get stay here working for the cause while I get shipped back to Maxville?"

"I'm afraid so. But you'll be right where you always liked to be, right in the center of the action and danger. Gain her trust, and it could be the key factor in our victory. Remember, we need to stop this, if not the consequences could be deadly."

"What exactly are the consequences?" Asked Lash, shy and timid, with a note of fear strong in his voice.

"Well, you know what your friend Axe looks like? Now, that's just the creation of the beast. That's not even close to what they could to do. In addition to paralyzing everyone's powers, it'd release radiation into the atmosphere. The entire earth would be covered in explosions, and all you'd ever see… would be fire."

Shamefully, Warren Peace bowed his head. Fire. That was the most defining factor about him, yet it was sometimes the thing he hated the most about himself. Fire was not like any other power; it did not create. It destroyed. His friends all had powers that could help people, and save lives, and he could only burn. Sometimes, he lie awake and wondered when his endless wick would burn out. That was what had happened to his father's father, yet another super villain. The battle he was fighting in was a long one, and he… He lost control. The flames consumed him and all that remained was the ash; so familiar, the same thing he'd always left behind after fighting.

Shaking his head, Warren turned his back to his friends and family, staring only at the large filing cabinets that surrounded the room. They were tall and metal and cold, sort of like his siblings. Nina and Iggy. He really did love them, but he didn't understand them at all. Maybe it was because they were geniuses that caused their lack of acceptance toward Mira. Whatever the reason be, Warren knew that he would never be like them, stoic and harsh, precise and calculating, without a thought spared for any emotion.

"So, team, are we ready to kick the ass of evil, huh?" Nina's tone was strange, both doubtful and sarcastic. Girls were hard to understand, but genius girls with broken families and superpowers were even worse, thought Lash. Smiling, he thought of Anahera. Hopefully, she understood that, when the time came for battle, he would die for her.

Like a psychic, she turned to him and delivered a weak smile. "Go, team! She said, her voice barely audible. The others nodded and Warren turned around to face them.

"Remember, you guys. This isn't about just us. This about billions of people, all of humanity for that matter. We can't screw this up, or it'll be the last mistake we ever make.

"But no pressure." Said Barron, in his deep voice, laughing maniacally. Of course he didn't care; death would be a welcome change from small cells and life sentencing.

So that was their mission. Save a friend, save the world. They needed to find an ore and assemble fighters, needed to stop the biggest tragedy in history from occurring. It would not be a simple task, but the outcome of not trying was unthinkable.

They would succeed. Succeed, or be destroyed.

**DRAMATIC ENDING… Which totally defies my beginning, but whatever. I'm just happy to have this chapter finished. Anyways, I have come here to tell you that I probably won't have a chapter up until next Saturday or Sunday. But I PROMISE I will have a chapter for you within the next week. If not, you can egg my house with, well, you know, eggs. I'll try and give you a week chapter, though I dunno if I can. We shall see, Ladies and Gents, we shall see…**


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